98 
Blighted Hopes of a Broken I'ast. 
2i4:. A week later a loimal invitation was acnt to the whole 
officers' corps: the first of the fat turtles was to be killed and 
this of course cuuld not be done without our friends participat- 
ing. The company arrived with smiling countenances and assured us 
they had gone without breakfast so as not to spoil their appetite 
for the soup and sncculent turtle steak, whereupon Commissary Low 
prudently placed a few bottles of ruui in a coi ner and souie sugar in 
a box, so that a glass of punch might be drunk -w ilh thi' meat: up 
till now, the inhabitants of Kappi had supplied us w ith lemons for 
the very purpose. To forget our ap])etites, we sat down to a game of 
whist. Stöckle, Tiedge and four Indians hail already been sent several 
hours before to (he turtle, pen only three-quarters of au hour distant, and 
Adams' cooking-pots had long been waiting for liie tlesh that they were 
about to render }talatable, but all en(|uiries as to whether the messengers 
had yet returned were answ ered in the negative until iinally, Stöckle him- 
self walked into the house lookijig like a niiseiablei sinner and, with his 
ghastlj news, changed us and our hopes into vei-itable columns of salt. 
Stammering in a tremulous voice he gave us the awful ridings that, 
except for a single dead one, there was not a trace of turtle visible in the 
pen: by loose]iing some of the palings that had not lieen driven in t'»o 
tightly, they had got aAvay. The anxiety and embarrassment of Stöckle 
and Tiedge, Avho could well understand that they, thi' builders of the pen, 
would be regarded as responsible for the loss, bordei-ed on the ridiculous, 
particularly as they tried to give vent to their feelings by cursing and 
swearing at the poor animals. Looking s]ieecliless at one another, we 
gazed upon the Avi eckage of our hopes and castles in tiu^ air, out of which 
the dried and blackened carne secca sneeringly stared, until the 
immoderate laughter of the officers, Avho through our loss had been 
defrauded of their present Lueulline meal, awakened us out of our 
bewilderment, and forced us to join in with it. I shall never forget this 
both vexing, yet extremely lidieulou.s scene. Instead of turtle soup and 
steaks, the officei'S had to fill their hungry stonuu-hs with sun-dried beef, 
which would have proved harder for us to chevr Ihnn our friends' 
inexhaustible witticisims seasoned-Avith-salt, had it not l)een that we did 
not dare let them see that they were annoying us. AYe swallowed our 
vexation as best we could, and waited for the day of reckoning. 
245. Depressed, we w^nt next morning to have a look at the empty 
l>en and satisfied ourselves, unfortunately too late, that the palisades for 
these huge animals had been too weak. The dollars that they had 
cost us had been wasted, and short commons renuiined our caterer during 
the whole of the wet season. But a still harder loss was soon to be the 
lot of us all. A letter which two Indians 1 nought from Bartika Grove 
contained instructions from the President of the Missionary Society in 
London for Mr. Youd to le^ive Pirara and return to Waraputa, because 
the Society did not dare extend its sphere of operations at Pirara until it 
had been definitely decided that the latter really belonged to British ter- 
ritory and soil. Like ourselves, he recognised that the orders had to be 
obeyed, and the abandonment of the field of his noble sacrifice to a growth 
of weed just at the time when he saw the i^cattered seed ripening with 
