“Then, trapesing about one afternoon, footsore like and tired of trying to get something to do on the sugar estates, I climbed over a wall into a bit of shade, an’ sat me down under some cocoa trees to rest. I confess I did get over a wall, which is a thing you can’t often do without making trouble except on old Dartymoor. An’ there I was with the mountains around—all covered to their topmost spurs wi’ wonnerful forest, and the Caribbean Sea stretched blue as blue underneath. Such a jungle of trees an’ palms laced together with flowering vines as you’ve never dreamed of. Trumpet flowers, an’ fire-red flamboyants, an’ huge cactuses, an’ here an’ there a lightning-blasted, gert tree towering stark white above all the living green. An’ king-birds an’ humming-birds twinkling about in the air like women’s rings an’ brooches, an’ lizards so big as squirrels a-scampering upon the ground, an’ tree-frogs in the trees, an’ fireflies spangling the velvet-black nights. An’ no dimpsy light, neither at dawn nor even, for the moment sun be down ’tis night, an’ moment he be up again ’tis morning. You can see un climb straight out o’ the sea as if he was rolling up a ladder. “I sat there in the shade, an’ at my very hand what should I find but a ripe pomegranate? ’Tis a fruit as you folks haven’t met with outside the Bible, I reckon, yet a real thing, an’ very nice to them as like it. Packed tight wi’ seeds, the colour of the heather, wi’ a bitter-sweet taste to it as be very refreshing to the throat. Such a fruit I picked without ‘by your leave,’ an’ chewed at un, an’ looked at the butivul blue sea down-under, an’ talked to myself out loud, as my manner always was. “‘Well, Bob Bates,’ I sez, ‘you be most tired o’ caddling about doing nought, ban’t you? Still, you’m a lucky chap, whether or no; for a live D.B.S. be a sight better’n a dead cabin-boy. ’Twill larn ’e to treat the sun less civil. Don’t do for to cap to him in these parts. But you keep up your heart an’ trust in the Lord, as Mistley told ’e. He’ll look to ’e for sartain in His own time.’ “Then I heard a curious ristling alongside in the bush, an’ catched sight of a pair o’ cat-like eyes on me. ’Course I knowed there wasn’t no savage beasts there, but I didn’t know as there mightn’t be savage men, an’ I was going to get back over thicky wall an’ run for it. But too late. They was human eyes, wi’ a human nose atop an’ a human moustache under, but a very comical fashion of face an’ a queerer than ever I’d seen afore or have since.