Will the title bear a few words as to Tom the hunter?  Was ever a keener, a more patient, a more self-possessed, and consequently a more successful, sportsman?  He it was who, from a cranky punt (no white man would venture out to sea in such a craft,) at three o’clock one windy afternoon, harpooned an immense bull-turtle, which towed him towards the Barrier Reef, into the track of the big steamers 4 miles to the east.  He battled with the game all the afternoon and evening, overcame it at “the dead waste and middle of the night,” and towed it back to the beach, landing after thirteen hours’ continuous work.  Tom accomplished the feat in a strong breeze and with a turtle diving and tugging, when he might have cut the line at any moment and paddled home comfortably.

He is as much at home on the top of a bloodwood tree, hanging round a swaying limb while cutting out a “bee nest,” as in a frail bark canoe among the sharks on the skirts of a shoal of bonito.

As we neared the beach one day a big sea-mullet came into view.  Without a moment’s hesitation, and as it flashed past the boat, Tom, using the oar as a spear, hit the slippery fish with such precision and force as to impale it.  He will harpoon a turtle as it rushes away from the boat, 5 feet beneath the surface, with the coolness of a billiard-player, and with unerring accuracy “taking off” for the speed of the boat and the refraction of the water.  All the ways and habits of fish, and their favourite feeding-grounds, are to him as pages of an open book.

A groper, more voracious and bolder than usual, followed a safely-hooked perch from the dim coral garden, worrying it like a bull-dog.  As the struggling fish splashed on the surface the groper, abandoning its illegitimate prey, swerved swiftly downwards.  The retreat was a second too late, for Tom had seized the, harpoon lying athwart the boat, and though the fish appeared through a fathom and a half of water, a vague, fleeting, contorted shadow, he reached it.  The barbed point passed through it, carrying a foot or two of the line, and a 30-pounder was added to our catch at one stroke and without a tremor of excitement on Tom’s part.

He sailed his punt—­12 feet long and 4 feet wide—­6 miles, loaded with eight adults, eight piccaninnies, five dogs, a cat, blankets for the crowd, and all the frowsy miscellanea of a black’s camp.  It was not a boatload that landed on the beach:  it was a procession.  But Tom would go to sea on a chip.  His skill as a sailor of small boats is largely a manifestation of characteristic caution, his precept being—­“Subpose big seas come one, one—­all right.  Subpose come two, two—­look out!”

“Little Jinny”

In Life and In Death

She was called “Little Jinny” to distinguish her from another of the blacks about the place—­a great, good-natured, giggling creature who laughs perpetually and grows ever fatter.  There was nothing in common between the two.  Indeed they frequently had differences, for “Jinny” proper is industrious, obliging, cheerful, and full of fun, while she, “Little Jinny,” was silent, sulky, and ever averse from toil.