THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 61 



disappeared in the growing darkness and the thin mist that 

 had been gradually rising. Now I felt rather aggrieved, and 

 was certainly not prepared for the vials of wrath that were 

 poured out upon me ; but the Philosopher glared at me awfully 

 through his spectacles "och!" (how shall I syllablize that 

 gutteral Teutonic expletive of mingled disgust and contempt) 

 " why did you not fire, you should have killed fifty; a hundred.''' 

 The more placid Geologist said nothing, but the intense dis- 

 pleasure frowned from his manly brows was terrible to look upon. 

 In vain I pleaded that politeness alone had kept my finger from 

 the trigger, that I was waiting and waiting for them to shoot, 

 they were deaf to all my blandishments, and could not or 

 would not forgive my misplaced courtesy. 

 It was a regular case of 



The Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn, stood waiting for Sir 



Richard Stvahan. 

 Sir Richard, longing to be at ' em, stood waiting for the Earl of 



Chatham ! 



And I suppose that, as in our own case, Sir Richard and the 

 Earl, to the end of their days, each considered the other 

 entirely answerable for the fiasco. 



We returned to the barge, but by this time the moon had bright- 

 ened the scene, and we rowed quietly up the eastern side of 

 the island, hoping to come upon the Crab-plovers, the great 

 majority of which had originally come this way. We saw 

 nothing of them, but as we were returning thousands of 

 huge flying foxes (Pteropus nicobaricus, they proved to be) poured 

 out from the higher trees on this side of the island in one con- 

 tinuous stream. We shot five or six ; those that were not quite 

 dead we retrieved as they floated, but those that were killed out- 

 right sank like stones, and we only succeeded in fishing up one 

 of these that we marked exactly, and then saw lying black on 

 the coral bottom that shone up white and bright in moon- 

 light. 



All this while a terrific fusilade was going on from the barge, 

 and naturally when we reached it we asked to see the spoils. 

 Our Invertebrate, who appeared entirely occupied with a drag 

 net, said he thought he had heard one or two shots, and that was 

 all the information we could extract. 



A number of lovely fish had again been caught, and dinner 

 somewhat soothed my indignant companion's ire, who, however, 

 could not quite forget those wretched Crab-plovers. Later the 

 one I had shot in the morning was produced and partially 

 dissected ; it proved to have made a meal, entirely off one 



