I don’t know who was happier; he, or Sailor, again and again splashing through the water and returning with a bird in his mouth.  As for me, I’m afraid I am but a half-hearted sportsman, for I noticed that, as the bang-bang-bang of the gun shivered the silence like a crystal mirror, those white spirits of the morning, till then massed in dazzling purity on the mangrove coppice, rose once more in a silver cloud and vanished.  It was as though beauty were leaving the world.

And once more I was thankful for the presence of dreaming and worshipful youth.

“I shall hate him in a minute,” said the boy, but just then came across the water to him Charlie’s jovial challenge to show his marksmanship, and he took it forthwith with the same nonchalant skill as he did everything, making, by long odds, as Charlie generously admitted, the most brilliant shot of the day.

Now duck-hunting, while exciting enough in itself, makes unexciting reading, and when I have recorded that Charlie’s bag for the day was no less than seven and a half dozen (I am not sure that our figures will agree) and related one curious incident of the day, I shall leave the reader to imagine the rest.  The incident was this: 

Early in the afternoon, Charlie had made one notable killing (five, I think it was; he will correct me if I am wrong), but one of the birds, not quite dead, had fluttered away into a particularly dense coppice.  Sailor had been sent in after it, but, after a lot of fussing about, came out without his bird.  Twice Charlie sent him in; with the same result.  So, growing impatient, he got out of his skiff, went splashing through the marl water himself, and disappeared in the coppice.  Presently we heard his big laugh, and the next second, his gun.  A moment or two after, he reappeared, shouldering a huge black snake.  No wonder Sailor had been unable to find his bird, for, as Charlie had entered the coppice, the first thing he saw was this snake coiled up in the centre, with a curious protuberance bulging out his neck.  Flying from Charlie’s gun, the unfortunate duck had landed right into the jaws of the snake!  As Charlie ripped open the snake’s side—­there, sure enough, was the duck.  So he was added to the day’s bag; and, if he was among those Tom cooked for dinner when we reached camp again that evening, he had the somewhat unusual experience of being eaten twice in one day.

CHAPTER VII

More Particularly Concerns Our Young Companion.

The days that now followed for a week might be said to be accurate copies of that first day.  Had one kept a diary, it would have been necessary to write only:  “ditto,” “ditto,” “ditto” under the happenings of the first.  Wonderful dawn—­ditto; white herons and pelicans—­ditto; duck—­ditto.  But they were none the less delightful for that—­for there is a sameness that is far indeed from monotony—­though I will confess that, for my own tastes, toward the week-end, the carnage of duck began to partake a little of that latter quality.  Still, Charlie and Sailor were so happy that I wouldn’t have let them suspect that for the world.