"Now, then," said Dinny, "you've got the mushket and the bagnet, and those two make one; but if I was you I'd cut down one of them bamboos and shtick the bagnet an that, which would make two of it, and it would be a mighty purty tool to kill a pig." The hint was taken, Bart soon cutting down a long, straight lance shaft and forcing it into the socket of the bayonet. "Then next," said Dinny, "if I was captain I should say let's see about something to ate." "Hear that, Abel?" said Bart. "Yes. I was thinking of how we could get down some cocoa-nuts. There are plenty of bananas." "Hapes," put in Dinny; "and there's a cabbage growing in the heart of every one of thim bundles of leaves on the top of a shtick as they call palms; but them's only vegetables, captain, dear, and me shtomach is asking for mate." "Can we easily shoot a pig--you say there are some," said Abel. "And is it aisily shoot a pig?" said Dinny. "Here, give me the mushket." He held out his hand for the piece, and Abel, who bore it, hesitated for a moment or two, and glanced at Jack, who nodded shortly, and the loaded weapon was passed to the Irishman. "Ye doubted me," he said, laughing; "but niver mind, it's quite nat'ral. Come along; I won't shoot anny of ye unless I'm very hungry and can't get a pig." He led the way through an opening in the rough el if, and they climbed along a narrow ravine for some few hundred yards, the roar of the sea being hushed and the overhanging trees which held on among the rifts of the rocks shutting out the evening light, so that at times it was quite dusk. But the rocky barrier was soon passed, and an open natural park spread before them, in a depression of which lay a little lake, whose smooth grassy shores were literally ploughed in every direction with shallow scorings of the soil. "Look at that now," said Dinny in a whisper, as he pointed down at some of the more recent turnings of the soft earth. "The purty creatures have all been as busy as Pat Mulcahy's pig which nobody could ring. Whisht! lie down, ye divils," he whispered, setting the example, and crouching behind a piece of rock. The others hid at once, and a low grunting and squeaking which had suddenly been heard in the distance increased loudly; and directly after a herd of quite two hundred pigs came tearing down through a narrow opening in the rocky jungle and made straight for the lake. They were of all sizes, from little plump fellows, half the weight of ordinary porkers, to their seniors--the largest of which was not more than half the dimensions of an English pig. They trotted down to the water side, where they drank and rolled and wallowed at the edge for a few moments, and then came back in happy unconsciousness of the fate which awaited one of their number, and passing so near the hidden group that Dinny had an easy shot at a well fed specimen which rolled over, the rest dashing on through the trees squealing as if every one had been injured by the shot.