hundred miles to Manila. I might go there and make some sort of a dicker—"
"Don't be impatient," Keith urged. "We may think of two or three different ways out of the difficulty if we take time. And anything is better than handing over the lion's share to that blackguard on Tamba."
Two days passed, and whatever Moniz anticipated, he was merely left to chew the cud of reflection. The shells on the drying ledge were all cleared up, and then Chester, more as a matter of routine than anything else, went off in the ketch to take up shell, on Keith's suggestion, from the northeast side of the reef. It was palpable, when he returned that evening, that his mind was no longer centred on pearling. He was worried. He had spent the entire day, while the divers were at work, trying to disentangle the knot into which he had tied his affairs.
To do him justice, it was on his sister's account that he cared most. A man, he reflected, can always muddle along somehow, even if he does find himself stranded. But half the capital sunk in the plantation had been Joan's. She had unquestioningly taken his advice and permitted the investment, placing complete faith in his judgment. And Chester was bitterly conscious of the fact that things might now have been different. In his mortification he apportioned more than a just share of the
