"What are you thinking of, Ready?"

"Why, I am thinking that we must look for water as fast as we can."

"Because I can see no island to leeward of us as I expected, and therefore there is less chance of getting off this island; and this bay, although very beautiful, is full of reefs, and I see no inlet, which makes it awkward for many reasons. But we cannot judge at first sight. Let us now sit down and take our dinner, and after that we will explore a little."

Ready cut two wide marks in the stems of the cocoa-nut trees, and then descended with William to the low ground, where they sat down to eat their dinner. As soon as their meal was finished they first walked down to the water's edge, and Ready turned his eyes inland to see if he could discover any little ravine or hollow which might be likely to contain fresh water. "There are one or two places there," observed Ready, pointing to them with his finger, "where the water has run down in the rainy season: we must examine them carefully, but not now. I want to find out whether there is any means of getting our little boat through this reef of rocks, or otherwise we shall have very hard work (if we change our abode to this spot) to bring all our stores through that wood; so we will pass the rest of this day in examining the coast, and to-morrow we will try for fresh water."

"Look at the dogs, Ready, they are drinking the sea-water, poor things!"

"They won't drink much of that, I expect; you see they don't like it already."

"How beautiful the corals are - look here, they grow like little trees under the water, - and look here, here is really a flower in bloom growing on that rock just below the water."

"Put your finger to it, Master William," said Ready.