Yet, as if by some mute flash of understanding, no one commented on his absence. No one questioned Margaret, and she offered no information. Neither then nor thereafter was his name ever mentioned by anybody: and if you had known the children intimately you would never have guessed from _them_ that he had ever existed. iii The children’s only enemy on board the schooner (which presently put to sea again, with them still on board) was the big white pig. (There was a little black fellow, too.) He was a pig with no decision of mind. He could never choose a place to lie for himself; but was so ready to follow any one else’s opinion, that whatever position you took up he immediately recognised as the best, the only site: and came and routed you out of it. Seeing how rare shady patches of deck are in a calm, or dry patches in a stiff breeze, this was a most infernal nuisance. One is so defenceless against big pigs when lying on one’s back. The little black one could be a nuisance also, it is true--but that was only from excess of friendliness. He hated to be left out of any party: nay more, he hated lying on inanimate matter if a living couch was to be found. On the north beach of Cape San Antonio it is possible to land a boat, if you pick your spot. About fifty yards through the bushes there are a couple of acres of open ground: cross this, and among some sharp coral rocks in the scrub on the far side are two wells, the northernmost the better of the two. So, being becalmed off the Mangrove Keys one morning, Jonsen sent a boat on shore to get water. The heat was extreme. The ropes hung like dead snakes, the sails as heavy as ill-sculptured drapery. The iron stanchion of the awning blistered any hand that touched it. Where the deck was unsheltered, the pitch boiled out of the seams. The children lay gasping together in the small shade, the little black pig squealing anxiously till he found a comfortable stomach to settle down on. The big white pig had not found them yet. From the silent shore came an occasional gun-shot. The water-party were potting pigeons. The sea was like a smooth pampas of quicksilver: so steady you could not split shore from reflection, till the casual collision of a pelican broke the phantom. The crew were mending sails, under the awning, with infinite slowness: all except one negro, who straddled the bowsprit in his trousers, admiring his own grin in the mirror beneath. The sun lit an iridescent glimmer on his shoulders: in such a light even a negro could not be black. Emily was missing John badly: but the little black pig snuffled in supreme content, his snout buried amicably in her armpit. When the boatload returned, they had other game besides pigeons and grey land-crabs. They had stolen a goat from some lonely fisherman.