Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/190

162 twenty feet high,—convinced Striker that no human beings were in the vicinity, to become their friends or their enemies; and then the sailor set about obtaining some food, for he was now nearly starved.

He felt certain that the storm had cast up upon the irregular beach more or less fish, and in this he was not mistaken, for hardly had he covered a distance of half a dozen rods than he heard a flapping, and saw a winged coryphene trying vainly to reach the ocean, from which it had been hurled.

"A dolphin!" he cried, making a mistake common to many sailors, who do not distinguish the difference between the two creatures. In a second he had the coryphene by the tail, and a blow upon the rocks ended the wounded one's misery and made the prize his own. The fish was over two feet long, and weighed all of seven pounds. It was at first black and brown, but its colors soon changed to olive and azure,—a peculiarity which it shares with the true dolphin of other waters.

Fish in hand. Striker returned to where he had left Larry, and commenced to gather such brush as he could find which was dry or drying. It was no easy matter to discover wood dry enough to burn