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The tall tops of the palms wrapped everything in a cool, green twilight. The waters of the lagoon were filled with little bronze forms, swimming and sporting about in its tepid depths regardless of the cruel eyes that gleamed at them from great log-like forms among the mangrove roots. Dozens of naked children fled up the rickety ladders of their homes as we approached.
During my trip I sighted only one startled crocodile that floated log-like a mile off, and Captain Baak, of the Dutch house, had not seen one during a whole year at Banana Point. It emerges from the waters of the right bank, a mere "ponton" plumed with dark mangroves and streaked with spar-like white trunks.
I was about to call my companion's attention to it, when I heard a crash among the roots near where the missile had fallen, and a crocodile, so large that I distrusted my senses, turned his great log-like head to one side and gazed up at the frightened monkeys.
Again he showed them the log-like bulk of the alligator, lying motionless and invisible to the unpractised eye; or called their gaze to a group of noble wild turkeys, which craned out their necks from their perch on a tall dead tree. "The game is all driven to the dry ridges," said he. "You will see that the birds and beasts are afraid to move. Their fright makes them almost tame.
A crowd of bronzed, naked little figures sport within the shadow of a maze of drying nets, and flee in consternation as the black, log-like head and cruel, watchful eyes of a crocodile glide quietly along the mangrove roots. On another island you discern the grim breastworks and the frowning mouth of a piece of heavy ordnance.
Then he threw himself in bed and lay there log-like till dawn. He was too weary to talk much, and Annie, with her heart aching for his fatigue, forbore to speak to him. She cooked the most strengthening things she could, and tried always to look fresh and pleasant when he came in. But she often thought her pains were in vain, for he hardly rested his sunburned eyes on her.
The decks were still cumbered with the bodies of the Lahineese, which heel to point and crosswise, had, log-like, been piled up on the main-hatch. These, one by one, were committed to the sea; after which, the decks were washed down.
He, who could have buffeted an ordinary sea for hours, was now completely exhausted by the unwonted exertions, the deadening influence of the tempest, and the log-like weight of his burthen He would not desert the father of Adelheid, and yet each fainting and useless stroke told him to despair.
Only the tanks held us, log-like, and we bailed and paddled: and after they saw we did not sink, my hardy bullies, perhaps in the ignorance of youth and boy's confidence that a boy and water are friends, began to shout aloud. We wallowed on. No sound came to us from either of the other boats; and now, very quickly it seemed, we came at the edge of the surf.
Then came the long, log-like stupor of their exhaustion. With the day, vocabulary, grammar, logic returned. They still iterated and reiterated their experiences, but with a coherence which gradually grew to consistence. In between, however, came sudden, sinister attacks of dumbness. "I remember wondering," Billy Fairfax broke their last silence suddenly, "what would become of the ship's cat."
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