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"I bet you that animal's got a nest somewhere near here," said Vernon eagerly. "Come, let's have a look for it; a cormorant's egg would be a jolly addition to our collection." They got up, and looking down the face of the cliff, saw, some eight feet below them, a projection half hidden by the branch of a tree, on which the scattered pieces of stick clearly showed the existence of a rude nest.
The Cormorant is not a flier, but a swimmer and diver; he cannot "show off" in the air, and only uses his narrow wings to take him, as quickly as may be, from one fishing-place to another. Most of the Cormorant's time is spent in fishing, for he lives entirely on fish, and catches immense numbers of them. He spends many hours, too, in drying his wings.
The cheer was mildly repeated with mingled laughter when the crowd on deck turned to observe the arrival of the Cormorant's boat. "Why, it's the skipper o' the Ironclad!" exclaimed a voice. "No, it's not. It's the skipper o' the Cormorant," cried another. "What cheer? what cheer, Groggy Fox?" cried a third, as the boat swooped alongside, and several strong arms were extended.
Henceforth, in spite of the well-intentioned suggestions of those who would shield him under the plea of exacting orders from high ones at Peking or extortions practised by slaves under him of which he is ignorant, there can no longer be any two voices concerning the guilty one. Yet what does the knowledge of the cormorant's cry avail the golden carp in the shallow waters of the Yuen-Kiang?
He is the State's cormorant, one that fishes for the public but feeds himself; the misery is he fishes without the cormorant's property, a rope to strengthen the gullet and to make him disgorge. A sequestrator! He is the devil's nut-hook, the sign with him is always in the clutches. There are more monsters retain to him than to all the limbs in anatomy.
By great good luck it happened that the Commander of the North-eastern District had come up from Hull to Scarborough for a few days' holiday. When he saw the Cormorant steam into the bay, he very naturally wanted to know what was the matter, and so he went down to the pier-head, and met the Cormorant's cutter. As Erskine came up the steps he recognised him and saluted. "Good-morning, sir."
The mangrove branches on the bank were pushed aside, revealing a creek, and a long Seminole dugout, bearing two rough-looking men, slipped like a snake out of the jungle and up to the Cormorant's bow. The two men vaulted easily over the low rail onto the deck. "Where is he?" asked the hideously scarred leader. "The boss said we should take him to Palm Island and leave him tied."
There is not the smallest verdure to be seen about it, neither does its neighbourhood afford even the smallest necessary of life, not even water, which the inhabitants have to bring in boats from the Quebrada, or breach of Pisagua, ten leagues to the northward; wherefore, being so miserable a place, the advantage derived from the guana or cormorant's dung seems the only inducement for its being inhabited.
Whatever the reasons, it was evident that a goodly number of men were making for the vessel with the great blue flag. Some had already reached her; more were on their way. The Cormorant's boat was among the last to arrive. "What does MDSF stand for?" asked Skipper Fox, as they drew near.
When one of the strangers pointed a walking-staff he had in his hand at a cormorant sitting on a dead tree, and there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, followed by the cormorant's fall there was another stampede into the bush. But the goblins laughed so good-humouredly that the children took heart to return and look at the fallen bird.
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