Next day, however, when Tommy had fed her bird and Mary had clipped its wings, and they had spent an hour or so tidying up the site of the hut preparatory to rebuilding, they set off again in a southerly direction, having resolved to extend their exploration within easy distance of the shore. Crossing the broad path of uprooted trees, flattened grass, and torn undergrowth, they found as they proceeded that the ridge hemmed them in, closer and closer to the sea. This was partly due to the curving of the shore, and partly to the diagonal lie of the rising ground. Little foothills of the ridge extended downwards towards the coast, forming ridges in miniature, cut here and there by streamlets.
On such expeditions Tommy almost always led the way, for her restless and active temperament was impatient of the sedater going of her sisters. But she never went far ahead, and every few minutes, as if alarmed at her own daring, she would run back and keep with the others for a time. She was thus a few yards in advance when, as she mounted a hillock, she came in sight of a number of trees clustering almost at the edge of the sea, and uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
"Oh, do look here!" she cried. "I believe we have come to some cocoanut palms. You remember we saw some at Valparaiso."
The others ran to join her, and Mary at once declared that she was right. There was no mistaking the tall, smooth stems with their feathery crowns. They all rushed forward eagerly. Thanks to the storm, there were several huge nuts strewing the ground around each of the trees. Tommy, who was first on the scene, picked up one of them and turned it over in her hands in a puzzled way.
"Is it a cocoanut after all?" she said. "It's not a bit like those I have seen in shops."
"It's a cocoanut right enough," replied Mary. "But you've got to strip off the outer husk before you come to the nut itself."
Tommy whipped out her knife and began to cut away the coarse, fibrous covering. It was very tough, and she soon declared that it would never come off unless the others helped her. So they all knelt on the ground with the nut in the middle, and employed their knives energetically, until at last the husk was removed. The shell inside was ivory-white, very different from the old brown nuts they had been used to see in England. Being quite brittle, a small piece was easily cut off the top, and they saw the inside full of a pale, milky liquid.