Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to permeate Nigel’s frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist.

“Now, Kathleen,” he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to do after sitting long in a constrained position, “it seems to me about time to—­by the way, we’ve forgotten to bring something to eat!”

His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh.

“Plenty cocoa-nuts,” she said, pointing with her pencil to the overarching trees.

“True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems; besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts.”

“But I have got a few without the husks in the boat,” said the girl, rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left.

She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England.  Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit down to lunch.

“Here is one,” said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, “that has got no meat yet in it—­only milk.  Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in the right hole.”

“The right hole?” echoed the youth, “are some of them wrong ones?”

“Oh yes, only one of the three will do.  One of our crawbs knows that and has claws that can bore through the husk and shell.  We calls him cocoa-nut crawb.”

“Indeed!  That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on cocoa-nuts.”

“This one do.  He is very big, and also climbs trees.  It goes about most at night.  Perhaps you see one before you go away.”

The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric crustacean, besides being unusually large.  It makes deep tunnels in the ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre.  One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man’s limb!  It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut—­that would be an unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside.  Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work.  This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts.  Possibly it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its charming habitat, or simply “for fun.”  Why not?

All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a bit of a naturalist in her tendencies—­as they sat there under the graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating and drinking cocoa-nuts.