Suddenly Mr Button stopped.
"Whisht!" said he.
Through the silence--a silence filled with the hum and the murmur of wood insects and the faint, far song of the reef--came a tinkling, rippling sound: it was water. He listened to make sure of the bearing of the sound, then he made for it.
Next moment they found themselves in a little grass-grown glade. From the hilly ground above, over a rock black and polished like ebony, fell a tiny cascade not much broader than one's hand; ferns grew around and from a tree above a great rope of wild convolvulus flowers blew their trumpets in the enchanted twilight.
The children cried out at the prettiness of it, and Emmeline ran and dabbled her hands in the water. Just above the little water- fall sprang a banana tree laden with fruit; it had immense leaves six feet long and more, and broad as a dinner-table. One could see the golden glint of the ripe fruit through the foliage.
In a moment Mr Button had kicked off his shoes and was going up the rock like a cat, absolutely, for it seemed to give him nothing to climb by.
"Hurroo!" cried Dick in admiration. "Look at Paddy!"
Emmeline looked, and saw nothing but swaying leaves.
"Stand from under!" he shouted, and next moment down came a huge bunch of yellow-jacketed bananas. Dick shouted with delight, but Emmeline showed no excitement: she had discovered something.
DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN
"Mr Button," said she, when the latter had descended, "there's a little barrel"; she pointed to something green and lichen-covered that lay between the trunks of two trees--something that eyes less sharp than the eyes of a child might have mistaken for a boulder.
"Sure, an' faith it's an' ould empty bar'l," said Button, wiping the sweat from his brow and staring at the thing. "Some ship must have been wathering here an' forgot it. It'll do for a sate whilst we have dinner."
He sat down upon it and distributed the bananas to the children, who sat down on the grass.
The barrel looked such a deserted and neglected thing that his imagination assumed it to be empty. Empty or full, however, it made an excellent seat, for it was quarter sunk in the green soft earth, and immovable.
"If ships has been here, ships will come again," said he, as he munched his bananas.
"Will daddy's ship come here?" asked Dick.
"Ay, to be sure it will," replied the other, taking out his pipe. "Now run about and play with the flowers an' lave me alone to smoke a pipe, and then we'll all go to the top of the hill beyant, and have a look round us.
"Come 'long, Em!" cried Dick; and the children started off amongst the trees, Dick pulling at the hanging vine tendrils, and Emmeline plucking what blossoms she could find within her small reach.
When he had finished his pipe he hallooed, and small voices answered him from the wood. Then the children came running back, Emmeline laughing and showing her small white teeth, a large bunch of blossoms in her hand; Dick flowerless, but carrying what seemed a large green stone.
"Look at what a funny thing I've found!" he cried; "it's got holes in it." "Dhrap it!" shouted Mr Button, springing from the barrel as if someone had stuck an awl into him. "Where'd you find it? What d'you mane by touchin' it? Give it here."
He took it gingerly in his hands; it was a lichen-covered skull, with a great dent in the back of it where it had been cloven by an axe or some sharp instrument. He hove it as far as he could away amidst the trees.
"What is it, Paddy?" asked Dick, half astonished, half frightened at the old man's manner.
"It's nothin' good," replied Mr Button.
"There were two others, and I wanted to fetch them," grumbled Dick.
"You lave them alone. Musha! musha! but there's been black doin's here in days gone by. What is it, Emmeline?"
Emmeline was holding out her bunch of flowers for admiration. He took a great gaudy blossom--if flowers can ever be called gaudy- -and stuck its stalk in the pocket of his coat. Then he led the way uphill, muttering as he went.
The higher they got, the less dense became the trees and the fewer the cocoa-nut palms. The cocoa-nut palm loves the sea, and the few they had here all had their heads bent in the direction of the lagoon, as if yearning after it.
