"Stand away from under," he cautioned. Down came a green nut. Dick seized upon it with avidity and proceeded to crack it with a lump of coral. The result rather surprised him, for all the milk had been spilt and nothing remained but the husk. "Why, it's empty!" he exclaimed. "Naturally," replied Villiers, laughing, for he had now descended from his lofty perch and was contemplating young Beverley's face with great amusement. "Why naturally?" demanded Dick, with the air of a fellow who has been "had". "What did you expect to find?" asked Jack. "Coco-nut," replied Dick promptly. "Then you won't find what you're looking for in a growing nut," replied Villiers. "It's full of liquid, nothing more. The white substance forms with keeping. Now, you fellows, who's for rounders?" The crew of the _Titania_ acted just like a pack of schoolboys on a holiday. They played rounders, using a soft coco-nut for a ball, indulged in leap-frog, leaping and jumping with all the abandon natural to a crowd of healthy young fellows landing on an island after weeks afloat. Apparently Nua Leha was uninhabited. Although the roysterers made enough noise to be heard from one end of the island to the other, their presence was apparently unnoticed. True, wild pigs charged frantically through the undergrowth, stolid penguins broke up their military formation and ambled awkwardly to less noisy haunts, but no human native gave sight or sound of his presence, nor, during their brief visit, did the _Titania's_ people find trace of human habitation. "We'll start by establishing a shore-station tomorrow," decided Harborough, as they rowed back to the yacht. "It will give us more room on board, and save the old boat from a lot of knocking about. You might look round to-morrow, Mr. Claverhouse, and fix up a secure berth for the sea-planes. There ought to be a sheltered spot on the other side of the headland." "Very good, sir," replied Claverhouse, with a joyous look on his face at the near prospect of "going up" once more. "We'll have all the petrol taken ashore," continued the skipper. "You had better see to that, Mr. Trevear. Dick!" "Sir?" "Any good with a rifle?" "First-class marksman in the Cadet Corps, sir." "Then act up to it," said Harborough, with his whimsical smile. "You'll be on ration fatigue, which means that whenever Pete wishes to give us pork for dinner, you've got to shoot a pig. No indiscriminate slaughter, mind. That I most strongly object to. We want enough for our needs and no more." It was quite a long time before Dick got to sleep that night. He imagined himself a mighty hunter, on whom his fellow-adventurers depended for the filling of the flesh-pot. The one fly in the ointment was the size of the game. Pity there weren't lions, tigers, and orang-outangs on Nua Leha. But he was jolly lucky, he decided. It was not the lot of most lads to have the run of a real coral island. CHAPTER XVIII The First Day on the Island