CHAPTER XII

THE LAKE OF AZURE


On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm,
almost as a lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the
aquamarine. Water so clear that fathoms away below you could
see the branching coral, the schools of passing fish, and the
shadows of the fish upon the spaces of sand.

Before them the clear water washed the sands of a white beach,
the cocoa-palms waved and whispered in the breeze; and as the
oarsman lay on his oars to look a flock of bluebirds rose, as if
suddenly freed from the treetops, wheeled, and passed soundless,
like a wreath of smoke, over the tree-tops of the higher land
beyond.

"Look!" shouted Dick, who had his nose over the of the
boat. "Look at the FISH!"

"Mr Button," cried Emmeline, "where are we?"

"Bedad, I dunno; but we might be in a worse place, I'm thinkin',"
replied the old man, sweeping his eyes over the blue and tranquil
lagoon, from the barrier reef to the happy shore.

On either side of the broad beach before them the cocoa-nut trees
came down like two regiments, and bending gazed at their own
reflections in the lagoon. Beyond lay waving chapparel, where