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"You mean it killed him instantly?"

"I don't know about instantly," she said "I re that happens is the camera falls out of his hands on to the sand Then his ar there Then he starts swaying He sways backwards and forwards several ti hione all dizzy andto faint any ht over and down he goes"

"Was he dead?"

"Dead as a doornail," she said

"Good heavens"

"That's right," she said "It never pays to be standing under a coconut pal"

"Thank you," I said "I'll remember that"

On the evening ofon lass of ru a sreen lizard on the balcony floor about six feet away The stalking lizard was co forward very slowly and very cautiously, and when he caue and touched the other one's tail The other one jumped round, and the two of the, staring and very tense Then suddenly, they started doing a funny little hopping dance together They hopped up in the air They hopped backwards They hopped forwards They hopped sideways They circled one another like two boxers, hopping and prancing and dancing all the tiuessed it was soh I kept very still, waiting to see as going to happen next

But I never sahat happened next because at that reat colanced over and saw a crowd of people clustering around soe There was a narrow canoe-type fisherman's boat pulled up on the sand nearby, and all I could think of was that the fisherman had co at it

A haul of fish is so that has always fascinated me I putdown fro over the beach to join the crowd on the edge of the water The htful Bermuda shorts that came down to the knees, and their shirts were bilious with pinks and oranges and every other clashing colour you could think of The women had better taste, and were dressed for the most part in pretty cotton dresses Nearly everyone carried a drink in one hand

I picked up my own drink and stepped down from the balcony on to the beach I made a little detour around the coconut palm under which Mr Wasserman had supposedly met his end, and strode across the beautiful silvery sand to join the crowd

But it wasn't a haul of fish they were staring at It was a turtle, an upside-down turtle lying on its back in the sand But what a turtle it was! It was a giant, a ht it possible for a turtle to be as enorht way up, I think a tall man could

have sat on its back without his feet touching the ground It was perhaps five feet long and four feet across, with a high doreat beauty

The fisherht it had tipped it on to its back to stop it fro away There was also a thick rope tied around the middle of its shell, and one proud fisherman, slim and black and naked except for a s the end of the rope with both hands

Upside down it lay, thisfrantically in the air, and its long wrinkled neck stretching far out of its shell The flippers had large sharp claws on them