As the rolling-stone explained, only the inhabitants of an atoll can tell what particular fish are poisonous and what are not, and on each atoll they vary according to the phases of the coral. Tari stated that this strange poisoning of the fish changed according to the position of the planet Venus. This is the general belief among all South Sea Islanders, but of the two theories Jack's was more probably the correct one. Jim, foiled in his fishing for fear of poisonous fish or fish with poisonous spines, turned his attention to shell-collecting, and he soon had quite a quantity heaped up, each one having the usual red spots which cover both shells, coral, and shellfish on an atoll. It was a very pleasurable experience for the adventurous boy, this picnicing life on a coral island, and, though he said nothing, he felt keenly disappointed when departure was decided upon. He dreaded a renewal of the open-boat trials and sufferings, and if the choice had rested with him there would have been no relaunching of the whaleboat. After nearly three weeks on the island, of rest and recovering from the late trying times, they one day launched the boat out through the surf, and, with a good load of cocoanuts, headed away before the south-east trades for Papeete. Hour after hour went by as the buoyant little craft ran gaily before the steady trade wind, with a new pioneer at the steering-oar in the shape of Mr. Bill Benson, late bosun's mate of Her Majesty's gunboat _Dido_. "She weren't a bad little bug-trap as things go, an' no Callao ship neither," pronounced the navy-man, speaking of his late ship as they took their midday tiffin. "She was too top-'eavy, though, to my likin' for rough weather; the owner, too, was a bit wet on muslin. It was enuff to give one fits to see the way 'e carried on in that little 'ooker. Stunsails, mind you, on the fore, reg'lar old style. She could sail, too, an' weren't such a bad model, on'y 'er bally old nose sp'iled the 'ole effec'. I've passed many a Chinee junk in 'er under sail, an' some o' them ain't no slouches neither with wind to suit them. "Her engines, though--oh, Lord! just a lot o' scrap-iron. You'd 'ear the tink-tink o' the bloomin' tiffy's 'ammerin' an' repairin' all day long. And b'ilers--oh, my! them wretched artificers spent mos' of their time crawlin' about on their bellies, tinkerin' of 'em. "There weren't never no time wasted. D'rectly they wos cool enuff to boil a lump er ice, in them pore sweat-rags 'ad to go, creepin' an' crawlin' on dunnage wood so as their feet shouldn't catch fire; then presently out they'd come, legs first, cooked to a turn an' 'most senseless. An' the way she wasted steam through 'er numerous cracks an' chinks would 'ave made the bloomin' Chancellor o' the Excheq'r go muzzy.