Silverside/Part 2

by Henry C. Rowland

“As I scrambled up Sam Lung wheeled, and I looked into the muzzle of a big revolver.”

 

VII.

SILVERSIDE'S story, while it aroused my sympathy for the man, did not tend to make his personality any the more attractive to me. It was the story of a big, self-sacrificing love and long years of unwavering devotion, and perhaps I should have felt more appreciation for his loyalty and condoned his baser acts. If Silverside had killed Fairfax when the latter was in full vigour I could have found it in my heart not to have censured the act. Fairfax had tortured Silverside, and afterwards tried to subject him to a living death, and all unjustly, if the cook's tale were true. One could scarcely blame Silverside for taking his revenge, but for him to slip in and strangle a weakened invalid seemed unutterably cruel and cowardly.

There was also his dishonest treatment of Von Bulow, who was, perhaps, the only man who had ever trusted Silverside and advanced him money on his unsupported word. Of course, the Chinaman had not done this through any liking or esteem for Silverside, but as a mere gamble in which he stood to lose a trifling amount as compared to the enormous benefit which he might have expected to receive should Silverside have played fair. No doubt Von Bulow weighed the chances and decided that the man would not dare trick him, for the comprador's arm was far-reaching, what with his wealth and the many ramifications of his trade. But Silverside had done worse than merely to trick Von Bulow, for he had deliberately taken another man into partnership, Gaston Berdou, who had apparently gone ahead and worked the oyster beds on the capital advanced by the comprador. Silverside may have told the truth in saying that Berdou was ignorant of the obligation to Von Bulow, but I fancied that the Chinaman himself had his suspicions, and I wondered that he had been able to control the outward evidence of his exultation when his eyes had fallen on the greasy thumb-mark and he realised that his enemy was within his power. There was little doubt in my mind that Von Bulow had seen the mark on taking the list, and that his astute Oriental mind had immediately leaped to the true solution of the case.

As for Silverside, the best thing to be said for him was that he had undoubtedly acted with no thought to his own profit, but solely in the interests of Therese Fairfax. The man's devotion to the woman had become a fixed idea—an obsession. I did not believe that he was quite sane.

At any rate, Von Bulow had him in the toils, and I wondered what would become of Silverside after he had piloted the yawl to the pearl island. It seemed probable that Sam Lung would return him to the comprador, who might very likely, being content to have found the pearls, let him go about his business. There would still be Berdou to settle with, and the Chinaman might offer Silverside's liberty in exchange for the sole proprietorship of the pearl fisheries.

As to what might happen to myself, another interesting problem was presented. Sam Lung had carried me along because he had no authority to make away with me, and was afraid to leave me behind for fear that I might raise an alarm and block the whole business. What would be done with me later I could not imagine. Silverside, however, threw some light on the question a little later in the day, for Sam Lung came below just after Silverside had finished his story and told him that he might clean the diving gear out of the spare bunk and berth there if he chose. Silverside was given no work aboard the yawl beyond that of navigating our course, whereas I might not have been aboard at all, for all the notice that was paid me.

Late that afternoon Silverside came up to where I was sitting on the main hatch idly watching the sea. The man looked much better, having quite slept off the lingering effects of his drug.

“It is a pity that you got mixed up in the business, Dr. Ames,” said he. “I never dreamed of such a thing. To tell the truth, I thought that you and the captain were ... were——” He hesitated.

“Drunk?” I snapped. “Far from it, my friend. Now that they have got me, what do you think that they propose to do with me?”

“I do not think that you are in any danger until Sam Lung has satisfied himself that the lagoon is really rich in pearls,” said Silverside.

“And after that?”

“After that you will be in very great danger. Sam Lung may decide that the easiest way would be to cut our throats and give us to the sharks.”

“That's a pleasant outlook,” said I, and glanced forward. “How many are there in the crew?”

“Ten, all told ... and every man jack of them carries a long knife in his belt. It is useless to think of resistance.”

“I'd a lot rather think of that than being shark bait,” said I.

“It may not come to that. Perhaps the place is not so rich as I was told. If Sam Lung decides that it is not worth while, you will probably be carried back to Suva.”

“And you?”

“That is hard to say. Von Bulow has me in his power. He may give me up to justice, or he may give me a chance to work out my indebtedness to him. Berdou would ransom me if I could get word to him. Perhaps we may find him in the lagoon.”

“Would Berdou sit tight and watch this crowd scoop his pearls?” I asked.

“Yes ... to save my life. Von Bulow counted on that. Berdou would not see me given up to justice, knowing that I have sacrificed myself for the sake of ... of Therese and Delphine.”

“Then it seems to me that you are pretty safe,” said I. “You are a hostage ... or blackmail, as it were. It seems to me that you are a bit of a fool, man. Why didn't you tell Von Bulow that Fairfax had left a big fortune, and that his wife would ransom you?”

He turned on me with a snarl that was almost animal, and his chocolate-coloured eyes were lurid.

“Fairfax's money? Ransom me? I'd rather go a dozen times to the gallows. Do you think that I killed him for that?”

“Well,” said I, wearily, “it's your own affair, I suppose. But I'll bet that the widow Fairfax won't have any such ideas about inheriting a couple of million for herself and daughter. Between us we're in a nice fix. If we find the pearls, I get scragged and you get off; if we don't, I get off and you go to the gallows. And if we find Berdou there the Lord knows what may happen....” And feeling a sudden distaste for the man's society I got up and walked away aft.

For a week we wallowed sluggishly on our course under the direction of Silverside. No attempt was made to prevent conversation between us, but a steadily-growing aversion to the man prevented my saying more than a few occasional words to him, nor did he try to talk with me. Sam Lung rarely gave voice to more than a few guttural monosyllabics to his crew, and had nothing whatever to say either to Silverside or to me. So far as physical comfort went I had nothing of which to complain. A spare sail made me a comfortable bed, and the food was sufficient and quite eatable, consisting principally of rice, stock-fish, onions and potatoes, with occasionally a piece of pork or salt horse.

As the days wore on, and the yawl made very slow going of it, I noticed that Silverside was getting more and more nervous, and, on the seventh day from Suva, asked him the cause.

“When I first told Von Bulow about the island,” said he, “I stated that it was about a week's voyage from Suva. He remembered this, and told Sam Lung that we ought to make it in about that time unless the wind held ahead. Now we've had a reaching breeze the whole way, sometimes getting it even on our quarter, and yet we haven't come more than three-quarters the distance. The yawl is slow to begin with, and she's been badly steered.” He wiped his clammy forehead with the back of his hand. “What I'm afraid of now is that Sam Lung may get suspicious and ... and ...” his face whitened visibly and his pupils dilated—“try some ... of his tricks.”

“No,” I cried. “You mean that he might ... do you some...”

“Torture ...” muttered Silverside. “I couldn't stand it, doctor. I'm not afraid of death, but the thought of physical pain makes me light-headed. I was tortured once ... and I've been a broken man since.”

His voice died away weakly, and I heard him swallow once or twice. He had begun to tremble, and his soft, brown eyes had a hunted, panic-stricken expression. They were fixed on something down the deck, and I turned to see Sam Lung coming toward us. As he drew near I noticed that his fierce Mongolian face wore a peculiar gloating look, and there was a savage gleam in his slanting eyes.

“Island pletty close?” he asked, gutturally.

Silverside seemed for the instant unable to speak. His lips moved and his breath whistled stranglingly, but no sound came. While sorry for him, I was at the same time angry that a white man should give such an exhibition of abject fear before this fierce-faced Tartar, especially as I did not really believe that Von Bulow's threat of torture would ever be carried out. The comprador had impressed me as being far too civilised a person for that.

But just as a hare by its shrieking excites a dog, Silverside's panic seemed to rouse some unregenerate passion in the Oriental. His face darkened, his eyes began to glitter and his thin lips set in a cruel line, while the muscles of his jaw bulged ominously.

“Von Bulow say one piecey islan' seben-day sail,” he croaked. “We got fai' wind allee time.”

Silverside found his voice with an effort.

“We come slow,” he answered, weakly. “S'ppose coolie man no steer straight? Yawl go this way....” And he made a zigzag motion with his hand.

Sam Lung scowled.

“Coolie man stee' dam' stlaight,” he growled. “How man' days?”

“Three more days,” answered Silverside.

Sam Lung swung on his heel and went below, quickly to re-emerge with a short section of diver's air-pipe. He walked up to Silverside and thrust the pipe almost in his face.

“You savvy watel-snake?” he snarled. “S'ppose we no find piecey island dam' quick....”

Slipping out of the coat of his pyjamas he took several turns of the pipe around his muscular torso, holding the end beside his ear.

“S'ppose one fella' pour hot kettle here....” said he, tapping the end of the pipe. “That feel plitty good, hey?”

I saw his meaning then and looked at Silverside. The man was livid as a corpse, with a blue line around his lips and a greenish pallor under his sunken eyes and around the angles of his jaws. He tottered back, supporting himself by one hand on the main shrouds. For all my pity I was conscious at the same time of a desire to kick him, for his flaccid terror was exciting Sam Lung.

“You hully up find him piecy island,” said he ominously, then pointed aloft. “Gale comin' plitty quick.” He walked to the companionway and flung the pipe below, then stepped aft to glance at the compass, looked aloft to see how the mainsail was drawing, and gave an order to slack the mainsheet.

“Buck up, man,” said I. “It's all a bluff, but if you act like that he might really get nasty.”

Silverside's voice came through dry, quivering lips.

“You don't know them, Dr. Ames,” said he. “They're devils from the Chinese hell.”

Sam Lung was right when he said that we were going to get some wind, for as the day wore on the sky began to thicken and the sea to darken. The long swell which had been heaving in astern increased, the wave intervals shortening as their height mounted. There was no sunset, and the night came with almost startling abruptness. Shortly after dark it began to blow with gradually increasing force, the wind so straight over the taffrail that a main boom tackle was rigged to keep the heavy spar from jibbing.

“This is a good thing for you,” said I to Silverside. “The yawl is a dull sailer and needs a gale to move her. With this breeze astern she ought to start off a little.”

“It will not make much difference,” said Silverside. “Her bottom is foul, and she can only get up to a certain speed. See here, Dr. Ames; don't you think that you might say a word in my favour to Sam Lung?”

“It would do no good,” I answered. Besides, he is only trying to frighten you. Stiffen your back, man, and tell him that if he tries any ugly business you will not take him to the island at all.”

Silverside shook his head. “It is easy for you to talk, Dr. Ames,” said he. “Your spirit has never been broken by the knout ... and a living death in the mercury mines. Once I might have faced Sam Lung ... but that was long ago. I am a broken man. Physical torture is my nightmare. At times I have had to saturate myself with opium to sleep....”

A fit of shuddering seized him, and observing that it only excited him to discuss the subject I began to talk of other things. Silverside told me tales of Daniel Fairfax's treatment of his wife which gave me, I must admit, a rather different feeling about the murder. Of this Silverside spoke but once.

“If I had been sure that he was a dying man,” said he, “I would not have strangled him. But for all I knew he might have recovered and come out to renew his persecutions. Of course, I had every reason to hate him, but it was not for that that I killed him. It was for Therese ... and the child.”

All that night and the next day we boomed along, making good time as it seemed to me, though Silverside said that we were not doing much. The wind had settled into a hard, steady gale, but if the yawl was slow she was also able, and no doubt under-sparred, for Sam Lung did not shorten sail. His manner had changed, however, and when I went on deck the morning after he gave me a morose glare, then turned his sinister eyes on Silverside, who was himself at the wheel.

“S'ppose we no sight um piecy island twelve o'clock,” he growled, “you tly him watel-snake ... what?”

A sort of ague seized Silverside. For a moment he seemed scarcely able to hold the wheel.

“I think we find the island about two bells, captain,” said he weakly.

“Then down it came, buried to the hilt between the broad shoulders of Sam Lung.”

Of what happened later I dislike to think. I was standing on the weather side of the quarter-deck staring astern at the big following seas which were beginning to mount, threateningly, when Sam Lung passed forward and gave some order at which the coolies came pouring aft. Silverside was sitting in the sampan which was in the waist, on the weather side. Hearing the scuffle of bare feet he looked up; quickly, then, as if terrified by the expression on the face of Sam Lung, he gave a queer gurgling scream and sprang for the main rigging. But Sam Lung was too quick for him, and as Silverside started to swarm up the rotten ratlines one of them parted under his weight, and before he could recover himself the sinewy Chinaman had sprung like a cat and caught him by the ankle. Two of the coolies leaped around the shrouds and gripped his other knee, when they dragged him down, as a pack of terriers might drag down a cat, nipped as it started to climb. The next instant he was on the deck, screaming and struggling, while the coolies pinioned his arms and passed a lashing around his ankles.

The thing happened so suddenly that I scarcely realised what was going on, but as Silverside crashed down on the deck I sprang to my feet, casting my eyes about for some sort of weapon. It came over me suddenly that Sam Lung meant to carry out his threat, and the thought rushed through me that life was not worth sitting quietly and seeing a white man tortured by a crew of fiendish Chinese. There were some iron belaying pins in a collar at the foot of the mainmast—the “horse,” I believe sailors call it; but as I scrambled up Sam Lung wheeled, and I looked into the muzzle of a big revolver.

“You go b'low,” he snarled. “You godam' quick no getty blains blow' out.”

There was no way out of it. As I hesitated I saw the sudden hardening of his ferocious face and the rigid swelling of his muscular forearm as his grip tightened on the stock. No doubt he would have been quite content with this excuse for getting rid of me. I turned, walked to the companionway and went below. Sam Lung stood tor a moment in the hatch glaring down at me; then his place was taken by another man, who appeared to be a sort of bo's'un. He was armed with an ancient musket, and sitting, or squatting, at the top of the ladder he levelled it at my chest without so much as a grunt.

The sweat broke out on me, not from any danger of my own, God knows, but from the thought of what might be going on above. There came the scuffling of naked feet and the sound of a body being dragged along, and with this such bleating cries as a sheep might make when seized in the coils of a boa. The scuffling ceased, giving way to a babel of guttural cries and commands. I heard the mizzensail jib with a crash and a moment later jib back again. Above all was the rush of the sea and the rising and falling hum of the gale through the rigging.

Suddenly above these storm sounds rose a weak, quavering cry—thin, pitiful, protesting; such a cry as a child might make when led into a surgical clinic. It rose high and tremulous, then ebbed away, and scarcely had it faded when I heard a pair of feet padding aft from forward. Some metallic object struck the corner of the skylight just above my head, and I started back as a splash of scalding water struck my shoulder. I felt myself getting faint and nauseated.

My mind pictured the whole diabolical scene: Silverside bound to the mizzenmast, the coil of pipe around his naked body, the swarm of gloating faces, the cook with his kettle of boiling water....

God! ... a scream rang out, and my own lips echoed it. A scream that was wild and frantic and agonised, and died into a long sobbing, shuddering moan. I sprang up from the rim of the bunk, and the musket wove small circles in front of my chest. But even as the tortured cry ebbed and flickered away there came from aloft another cry, thin and sharp and nasal. It carried another note: a shrill “e-e-e-e-yah,” followed by a torrent of monosyllabic speech. There was another scurry of feet on the deck and a torrent of swift orders.

Sam Lung's face was silhouetted against the pale glare from the hatch. He said something to the man with the musket, who lowered his piece and clambered on deck. I followed him.

The first thing that I saw was the prone figure of Silverside, either dead or fainting. From his pallor he might have been a corpse. Beside him lay the wire-wrapped pipe, and livid weals wound their way about the gaunt frame in purple smears. There were other scars also, older scars that ribbed the man's white skin in bluish weals. More than that, there showed on his left side a broad patch, silvery and glistening, wide as a man's two palms.

I knelt down beside the prostrate figure and reached for its wrist. For the moment I thought that they had killed him. I was feeling for his pulse, when Sam Lung came up carrying a bucket of sea-water.

“Him al'light,” said the Chinaman; and sluiced the water over Silverside, who gave a gasp and a smothered cry.

“You get up,” growled Sam Lung. “Him piecy island dead ahead.”

VIII.

Silverside tried to struggle to his feet, and would have fallen back to the deck if I had not gripped him under the arm. Sam Lung was eyeing him fiercely, the knotted end of the tarred-rope lanyard on the draw-bucket gripped in one fist ready to strike.

“Leave him alone,” said I, “he's coming.” I picked up Silverside's duck coat from where it was lying on the deck and threw it about his shoulders, for the wind was cold and damp with flying spray.

“Go stee',” growled Sam Lung, and gave the tottering man a shove toward the wheel. Silverside gripped the spokes and stood there swaying unsteadily. Sam Lung stared at him for a moment, then walked forward.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

He turned his heavy eyes and stared at me in a dull, uncomprehending way. I repeated the question.

“I will be all right now ...” he muttered. “Do you see the island?”

“Not yet,” I answered. “It was sighted from aloft.”

Silverside turned and looked at the big following sea. The crests were beginning to comb a little, and the yawl's head was swinging up dangerously as each foaming billow roared out from under her bows. I wondered that Silverside had the strength to meet her heavy yaws, but he did not seem to feel the muscular strain.

“Shall I give you a hand?” I asked.

“No, doctor. We should raise the island quickly now ... Ah, did you not see something under the boom? Watch now when she rises.”

We were thrown lumberingly up on the crest of a great billow, and as the mainboom swung aloft I saw distinctly a blue, ragged line against the low, grey storm clouds.

“Yes,” I answered, “high land.”

“That is the crater. I knew that I was on my course.”

The island rose rapidly above the mist and spray which partly hid the horizon until we could distinguish plainly the contour of the extinct volcano. A little later a row of palm fronds jutted clear of the haze, and then, as we rapidly approached, a band of white spouting surf stretched away as far as the eye could see. The wind seemed to gain in weight as we drew in toward the land, and astern of us the mammoth surges were crumbling dangerously.

Sam Lung came aft and stood for a moment by the rail, clinging to one of the main backstay runners and staring alternately ahead, astern, then at Silverside, whose big bony hands were wrapped about the spokes of the wheel, the long fingers gripping like the tentacles of an octopus. His face was colourless, but the brown, sunken eyes burned with a hot, slumbrous glow, and his thin lips, tightly drawn from the violence of the physical strain, showed a double row of yellow teeth. There was something in his face which puzzled me; a deep, inscrutable look which told of some set purpose, and about his mouth and jaws a sort of savage ruthlessness. Studying his features, I could scarcely believe that this was the same man who a few short minutes ago had been grovelling and bleating and shrieking like a hare between the fangs of a hound.

Sam Lung was studying him narrowly, puzzled as I was at the sudden change in the look of the man. It was plain, also, that he was troubled in his mind at the look of the sea ahead and the unbroken line of surf which stretched across the entrance of the lagoon. Presently he made his way to the main rigging, ran aloft, and stood for several minutes in the cross-trees, clinging to the topmast shrouds and studying the water ahead. We were less than a mile from the reef, and, so far as I could see, driving straight on to it, when he came down, and walking aft stood for a moment scowling at Silverside.

“Can do?” he demanded.

“Can do,” answered Silverside, and I noticed that a small red spot had come in either sunken cheek.

“Entlance dam' bad,” said the Chinaman.

“Not too bad,” said Silverside. “Get better, close in. Entrance turn like this ...” and he traced an inverted “L,” with a perpendicular at right angles to the upper limb, on the deck with his sandalled foot.

The old tub was yawing fearfully, now threatening with each soaring plunge to snap the boom tackle and jib the main boom across the deck. I marvelled at the muscular strength of Silverside. With legs braced and his big bony shoulders pitched forward he met each driving luff, twisting the clumsy wheel as one would twist the neck of a fowl.

“S'ppose you lend a hand at the wheel,” said he to Sam Lung, and his usually plaintive voice had a harsh note of authority. “Tell coolie men to stand by to trim mainsheet. We make one quick turn, then pay off quick. You savvy?”

“Me savvy plenty,” answered Sam Lung, and took the other side of the wheel.

“When I holler 'mainsheet,'” said Silverside, “tell coolies trim in pretty quick. Then all hands run forr'ad, back out piecy forestays sail. You savvy?”

“Savvy,” grunted Sam Lung. He raised his voice to a shout, and the man who had been my guard while Silverside was suffering the “water-snake” came running aft. The captain of a full-rigged ship could have brought his vessel about with less talk than was exchanged between the two, but finally it appeared that the manœuvre was made plain, and the bo's'un called the coolies aft.

It was none too soon, for we were almost in the moving water, and the yawl was rushing toward what I could now distinguish as an opening in the outer line of reef. Beyond this, not more than a quarter of a mile shoreward, ran the second line, and the big seas as they hurled themselves against it flung their heavy sprays, as it looked, a hundred feet in air, completely hiding the land and veiling in a snowy mist the rim of the crater, which suggested the stump of a rotten tooth. It was a fearful sight, and even the expressionless faces of the coolies had a drawn and sickly look as they clung to the mainsheet and stared shorewards.

I had already guessed at the manœuvre, which was to run straight in; then, hauling smartly on the wind, reach down between the two lines of reef for the entrance in the second, there to put the helm hard up and shoot away before the wind again, into the lagoon. But the sea, heavy as one finds only in the Pacific, and driven as it was by the weight of the monsoon, scarcely more than crumbled over the outer reef; and it seemed to me that when we came to haul on the wind we would find ourselves in mighty ugly water. So it looked also to the coolies, as I could tell from their pointing and jabbering, but it was too late to turn back. Indeed, I doubt if the yawl could have clawed offshore in that broken water.

Down we roared, and it looked as though the reef were rushing seaward to devour us. We drove into a maelstrom of sucking whirlpools and broad, bland eddies such as one sees on the top of a cauldron. The spray flew clear to the truck, lashed across the deck, and smote the straining sails with cannoning reports. The heavy yawl shuddered as the deep, crazy currents gripped adversely at her keel as though to wrench her hull apart. Close aboard, I caught a glimpse of a ragged mass of coral that reared itself from the sea like some Leviathan hurling itself from the deep to fall athwart us and bury the vessel in the brine. Halfway to the truck it reared; the hurtling sea submerged it, and the shock was that of two planets loosed from their orbits and crashing together.

Flat on the deck by the quarter bitts, with the spray cascading over my head, I looked at Silverside. Shoulder to shoulder with the man who had just tortured him he strained at the wheel with all of his great strength, teeth bared, gaunt forearms bulging, and through the opening of his dripping coat I could see the livid lines across the white skin of his chest. All at once he thrust his face toward that of the Chinaman, and I saw his mouth open as if in a shout, though the sound was swept away in the roar of waters. Then over came the wheel, while the coolies, who had been waiting the signal, fought and struggled with the straining sheet rope.

Around came the yawl, and in an instant her decks were flooded with boiling brine; but, hove down as she was when the gale struck her abeam, no damage was done except to the sampan, which was torn from its lashings and flung clear as if it had been a paper boat. Forward we rushed, our headsails thundering, as the crew, belaying the mainsheet, sprang to trim them down. Sam Lung's strident voice rose above the uproar, and the coolies rushed forward again. To leeward stretched the long, white smother about the inner reef and the spouting sprays which seemed to hang in air as if unwilling to fall back; and as my eyes followed it I could see where the white water suddenly gave way to a translucent green.

The yawl was an able boat, and forged staunchly through the turmoil. As we neared our turning point I looked at Silverside. The face of the man seemed transfigured. The dull red spots in either cheek blazed crimsonly, his yellow teeth were bared like those of a dog about to strike, and his eyes, usually dull and soft and vacant, seemed to hold the heat of a crucible of molten copper. He snarled some order into the ear of Sam Lung, who loosed one yellow hand to gesture fiercely. The bo's'un had a turn of the mainsheet on the bitts, and at Sam Lung's motion I saw the sheet rope steam as he let it run. Forward the coolies had led the forestaysail sheet outside the weather shrouds, and were hauling the sail aback with what feeble strength was in them. Sam Lung and Silverside were clawing at the wheel, jamming the helm hard up; and the yawl, her mizzen volleying free, was swinging on her heel to head for the opening in the second reef, which was, if anything, a more appalling portal than the first.

Around she came, straight for the entrance ... then on past, until her bows were headed for the breaking water. A cry burst from me, and I scrambled half up, my heart bursting, for we were driving directly on to the reef. My first thought was that the steering gear had parted under the strain, and then, as I looked at the two figures at the wheel, I understood, and the blood seemed to freeze in my veins.

For an awful struggle was going on, the more terrible for its utter silence; though any outcry, had there been such, would have been swept away in the roar of wind and water. For Silverside, his face like that of a destroying angel, was putting out the whole of his great strength to heave up on the wheel, while opposite and against him the Chinaman was struggling like a demon against him.

On the instant I saw the terrible design of Silverside. He meant to lay the yawl across the reef. Square before the wind as we were, another spoke and the mainsail would jibe, when no power in heaven or earth could save the vessel. The Chinaman saw it, too, and his Tartar face was that of a frantic fiend. Silverside was to windward, and as I watched I saw his hands loose their hold and dart down to clasp around a lower spoke. With feet braced on the slanting deck he strained slowly upward, forcing the wheel inch by inch against his adversary. A gust caught the mainsail aback, and I thought that all was over, but Sam Lung, with the fury of despair, put out a burst of superhuman strength, and the back of Silverside was bent like a springing spar. The head of the yawl swung up a trifle. But the Chinaman could not long support the strain ... and back we swung again. And so, for what seemed ages, but was in reality swift seconds, the terrific struggle went on. Racial enemies, Pole and Tartar, they fought their fight grimly, silently, terribly.

Then, as I watched, I saw a sudden flame pass over the face of Silverside, And back against him came the wheel. At first I thought that his iron muscles were bending under the strain, but as I looked I saw the spoke which he gripped bending slowly upward. The tough oak was giving way.

The end came quickly. Silverside loosed his grip of the parting wood, and one hand reached out toward Sam Lung's waist. I saw the flash of steel as Silverside raised the long, curved blade which he had snatched from the belt of the Chinaman. Then down it came, buried to the hilt between the broad shoulders of Sam Lung. The Chinaman sank to the deck; his grip relaxed, and almost at the same instant the mainsail jibed with the roar of an avalanche.

I flung myself face downward, clasping both hands around the iron bitts, and commended my soul to God, for the yawl was driving straight at the reef.

What followed was chaotic. Even as we lifted to drive into that smother of destruction I saw the bo's'un spring, knife in hand, at Silverside, and saw Silverside swing sideways to evade the blow and plunge his own blade into the man's chest. Then everything was blotted out in the white haze of oblivion.

Yet not a complete oblivion. I was conscious that the yawl plunged into a sort of elemental vortex, whence she was plucked by some Titan hand and flung spinning aloft. There were no noises; just one sense-ignoring diapason of sound which might have been a silence, utter and absolute, for all the consciousness it produced. It had even a sort of deadening effect, as though the immensity of all about impressed the individual as a mean thing, even to himself, and too slight to make his obliteration worth so much as a pang of consciousness. I have trod on ants whose little lives seemed more important than did mine in that moment. I felt myself an atom in the grip of the Infinite.

Yet, in spite of that, the instinct of self-preservation was keenly alive, and I locked my arms just under the crosspiece of the bitt-heads and waited. Even while the yawl appeared to hang in mid-air before the downward plunge to annihilation I was conscious that I was not alone, for a human body was close to mine, the arms gripped about the bitts over mine, and, without knowing who it was, my heart went out to him in a wave of companionship. It seemed to me that this person and I were about to face great truths together.

Then the deck appeared to drop away. Down, down, down it went, and the sensation was that of a nightmare. But not for long, for there came a crash that broke the flight, driving the very breath from my body. Followed, a sort of vertigo, a sense of drowning; water over and under and all about, and, above all, the vibration of rending fabric and the rip and tear of material dissolution.

“I found myself almost hanging from the bitts, my legs in the brine.”

The next impression was a sort of suffocating peace, and I stared about bewilderedly. I was still clinging to the bitts, but instead of lying horizontally my body was at a pitch of forty-five degrees or more, and as the water, which seemed over everything, washed away, I found myself almost hanging from the bitts, my legs in the brine, and what appeared to be the taffrail high overhead. Half of the wheel was there, above me and to the left, and the ragged stump of the mizzenmast. I was conscious, too, that all was turning, not gently, but with a dizzying force.

My arms ached, and there was a weight across my body. I turned to examine, and looked into the face of Silverside. He was clinging to the same bitts, his locked arms over mine. A surge of water swept over us, and when it had passed I saw that his eyes were open and intelligent.

“Scramble up,” he gasped in my ear, “before the next one.”

Even as he spoke he hauled himself up, over the bitts; then, clutching at the rail, climbed up abaft the stump of the mizzen, where he sat, astride. I followed him, coming to rest abaft the pillar of the compass. Then, as I looked about, I began to comprehend.

The yawl, flung directly on the sharp crest of the reef, had been cut in two amidships. The after fragment, where we found ourselves, had emptied itself of ballast and was floating nearly vertically, some ton or so of slag having no doubt clung in some way to her amidships section, possibly being boxed in to the frames.

Seaward stretched the reef, the great seas thundering over it, and flinging their sprays as it seemed to the meridian. All about us the water was swirling, the surface deep in spume, but comparatively still. Masses of débris were eddying here and there, but of the forward fragment of the yawl I saw no sign.

Silverside, braced behind the stump of the mizzen, looked down at me with a bleak smile. I stared at him questioningly. Thought and action were fast becoming possibilities again.

“Where are they ...?” I gasped.

“Ask John Shark,” he answered in a harsh voice. “His family swarm behind such reefs in a gale, waiting for the bounties the sea may bring. I like to pay my debts.”

“You might have told me,” I muttered.

“I saw that you were doing all that a man could. Besides, what did you matter? What did I matter? It was for Therese. The bottom under us is sewn as thick with pearls as the tunic of a rajah.”

I did not answer. It seemed to me that I was beginning to understand Silverside to some slight extent. My life mattered as much to him as the life of a cockroach; in fact, I was not sure but that he might have preferred to see me go the road of the coolies. Dead men are good confidants.

The water about us seemed to clear, and close aboard I saw a swimmer. It was one of the coolies, and as I watched him there came a swirl which was not that of the tide, and he disappeared. Silverside had been watching him, too. He looked at me and smiled.

“My friends are out in force to-day,” said he. “Look there ... and there.....”

I followed the direction of his pointing arm, and saw a series of long, sickle-shaped, slate-coloured fins weaving slow circles here and there. The after fragment of the yawl to which we clung had ceased its aimless twisting and turning, and presently seemed to come to rest in still water. The ripples washed past as though we were at anchor.

“We've stopped moving,” I called to Silverside.

“Yes,” he answered; “something is holding us. A bight of iron shroud, perhaps, caught around a mass of coral. Did you ever see so many sharks? The water is alive with them.”

He slipped his feet out of his sandals, then drew off his coat and sat there, nude to the waist, and as I looked at the big bony frame banded with clean-cut muscles I understood the source of the man's iron strength. Hanging about his neck by what seemed to be a cord of plaited horse-hair hung a black, glistening object.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, watching him in a sort of fascination.

“Swim ashore,” said Silverside.

IX.

The fragment of the wreck on which we were had evidently been fetched up by something, and was rising and falling sluggishly on the swell which came from the wash over the reef. No doubt, as Silverside suggested, a bight of wire shroud had looped itself over some projecting mass of coral. More probably, I thought, we were anchored by the sunk forward fragment to which we were still attached by wreckage. At any rate, there we lay, about halfway between the reef and the beach, which looked to be perhaps three-quarters of a mile away.

As it was, we were still outside the atoll itself. The formation of the island appeared to have been the result of three successive volcanoes; the first by far the largest, and of which the rim of the early crater was represented by the outer reefs. The second formed what was now the true atoll, and might be described as a small letter “o” slightly impinging on a larger letter “O,” so that the cavity of the first connected with that of the second. The third volcano, the smallest of the three, rose to a considerable height back of the atoll, its crater resembling, as I have already remarked, the stump of an old tooth, or, better yet, a barnacle.

Inshore of us the beach described a great sweeping curve to meet the reefs at either extremity, but this curve was broken a mile or so to the eastward by the opening into the atoll, which, as one could see, was not far back of the beach straight in from where we lay. Landing at the nearest point it would be but a short walk across to the lagoon. Silverside pointed this out to me as he prepared to swim.

Perhaps I may be able to find a boat or a canoe and come after you, doctor,” said he; and I noticed that his voice had regained its soft, purring inflection. “I would not advise you to try to swim. Sharks are not, as a rule, dangerous to anybody, but when they are in great numbers, as here, and of this particular variety, it would be unsafe for you to take the chance.”

“How about yourself?” I asked.

He touched the black object which hung in the middle of his white, naked chest. “I have here a charm which renders me quite safe,” he answered. “No doubt it sounds like a foolish superstition to you, but it has been tested, the first time involuntarily.”

“Where did you get it?” I asked.

“It was given me by a Kanaka warlock, whose magic was not strong enough to save his son ... or so he feared. I cured his son of a strangulated hernia, and this was a part of my fee.”

“You are a surgeon yourself?” I asked in surprise.

“I graduated years ago from the Medical College at Warsaw,” he answered. “Of course, I did not at first believe in this fetich any more than might you, but one day I was capsized with a canoe full of natives while fishing off a reef where the sharks are known to be unusually voracious. I was the only one who escaped. Since then the power of the charm has been put many times to the test. Now, you may see for yourself. Keep up your courage; we will contrive some way of getting you ashore.”

He had wrapped his sandals in his cotton coat, which he now proceeded to bind on the top of his head; then, tightening his belt, he rolled his trouser legs above the knee and secured Sam Lung's knife about his neck with a piece of rope-yarn. I watched him breathlessly as he let himself slip down the slanting deck and into the water, which washed about what was left of the companionway hatch. Even as he did so a big rounded dorsal fin appeared through the spume close alongside, and through a clear patch of water I saw a huge shape, mottled and banded with yellow, round of snout, and with a long tail, which undulated like a strip of algæ in an eddy. I knew the beast for the dread “tiger,” or “zebra shark,” the most rapacious of the species.

Silverside saw the great brute also, and glanced back at me with a faint smile.

“Watch,” said he, and slid off directly in the path of the sinister, leprous-looking man-eater. The water was clear, except for patches of frothy spume, and I could see the shark lunge forward with a sweep of its sinuous tail. The rounded fin sank a little, and an eddy swirled up in its wake. Silverside swam gently on his face, and for the instant it looked to me as if the shark was actually afraid of him, for it rose higher and backed away. Then forward it went again, passed close beside the swimmer, turned in front of him, and again backed away as though to let him pass. Another fin appeared, and still another, the last a different sort—long and curved slightly backward. Still they came, as though the word had passed that here was a prodigy, and all swam to see. Unmoved, as though surrounded by so many mackerel, Silverside lunged ahead, swimming on his side, easily, but with powerful strokes, which drove him ahead at a remarkable speed. Once or twice I thought they had taken him, but it was only a swell which hid his head from view. And so he passed on shoreward, his curious escort surrounding him like the bodyguard of some high lord of the sea.

I cannot say that I placed much value on the talisman. To me it was merely that, for some reason best known to themselves, the sharks did not want Silverside. There is much that is subtle and that we do not understand in the attitude of lower animals toward the human race. I once knew a man who could not enter a menagerie without producing a riot amongst the big carnivora, while I myself have always been able to walk up to the most savage chained dog and pull its ears. So far as the sharks were concerned Silverside was taboo, and that seemed all there was about it.

Nevertheless, I was relieved when he reached the shore and I saw his white figure going up the beach, as had Silverside been taken my own position would not have been a pleasant one. I saw him put on his coat, which he had carried on his head either to display the talisman or to give his swimming muscles freer play, when he crossed the beach and disappeared in the foliage.

A sudden depression seized me. What, I thought, if Silverside should not return? I knew the secret of the island. He had not stopped to consider my fate when he had laid the yawl across the reef—had not so much as given me a word of warning. No doubt he would have been quite content had I gone the road of the Chinamen. I knew of the pearls; I knew of his crime in murdering Fairfax, and the belly of a shark is no poor receptacle for such secrets. More than that, he knew that I was searching for Therese and the child, and Silverside did not intend that they should profit by the millions of Daniel Fairfax, his hated enemy. And, last of all, I was the only person who knew that he himself was still alive.

Lower and lower sank my spirits as these thoughts passed through my mind. I began to look about, wondering if it would not be possible to knock together some sort of a raft on which to float ashore, but the first glance showed me that with only my bare hands as tools this would be impossible. And then, as I was studying some means of wrenching loose bulwarks and deck-planking and what was left of the companion hatch, my heart seemed to stop beating, for I saw that the wreck to which I clung was slowly sinking.

A bubbling and hissing in the water alongside was the first warning I had of this, and the truth was borne in on me that the after fragment of the yawl, buoyed by the air inside it, was gradually losing this air and settling. Swift on this thought came the conviction that Silverside must have known. As a seafaring man he would be quick to appreciate that the fragment of a heavy waterlogged vessel of oak and teak, copper-bottomed, and with all of her ironwork, and still containing no doubt a certain amount of ballast, could only float by virtue of the air confined within her, and that no such structure would hold this air for long.

As I looked frantically about I saw that not as much as half of the part which had been unsubmerged was left. Air was escaping, no doubt, from every fine crevice, and as the wreck sank deeper the pressure on the remaining air would rapidly increase. Another hour would see my doom—find me in the water, the food for sharks.

A few short minutes of agonising panic and I had myself in hand again. Cold sweat was pouring down my face, and no doubt I was trembling like a man with an ague, but I had got in hand the panic which made me want to shriek and rave and fling myself into the sea; anything to have it all over as soon as possible. The absence of any hope seemed to quiet me, for now I was sure that Silverside had deliberately left me, well knowing what was bound to occur. I remembered Connor's story of how Silverside had once gone overboard to save a man from a shark, and had done so by keeping his own body between the monster and its prey. If he had wished to save me he could have kept me close to himself in the swim for the beach.

The slant of the deck was getting gradually more vertical, and before long the waves began to lap above the bitts to which I had clung. The water crept slowly to the wheel, and I climbed up behind the stump of the mizzenmast. A great many things passed through my mind as I crouched there waiting. I thought of my father, murdered by the Solomon Islanders, and I prayed in my heart for the courage to meet my fate with as strong a heart as I knew that he had met his. There was a sense of his being very near me, and after a little while the terrible feeling of desolation passed, and I began to wonder if I would not find him waiting for me “on the other side.”

Old memories came surging back. Once as a child, aboard my father's brig, I had seen a man taken by a shark. It was a Kanaka boy, and the tragedy had so impressed my mind that for many months I used to wake in the night dreaming that I had been seized while swimming. The last time that this happened I opened my eyes to find my father leaning over me, and he had lifted me in his strong arms and soothed and quieted me. I wondered if it would be like that now, when all was over, and something seemed to tell me that it would.

Perhaps the suspense of waiting made me a little light-headed, for presently I found myself talking aloud, almost conversationally, as if to somebody there close to me. “Father,” I was saying, “please help me to meet it like a man, and not disgrace you...” and other things which it would sound insane to write, until presently I found my courage coming back again. The water was almost to my feet, so I crawled higher, and, hooking my elbows over the taffrail, stared down into the clear green water.

Presently a big transparent shape glided slowly past, then turned, and was joined by another. Up from the depths rose a third, outlined in a faint, fine tracery, and I saw a lambent eye turned up to look at me. Others came, as if they knew what was waiting for them there on the settling wreck. I watched them with a sort of cold, numb curiosity, wondering what it would be like, and if I would feel much pain. With the idea of trying to frighten them I struck the taffrail a jarring blow. They drifted nearer to the surface, as though in answer to a summons.

It seemed to me hours, though in reality the time must have been very short, that I lay there passively, vaguely fascinated by the curving, sinuous forms which were weaving parabolic figures back and forth, back and forth. And then, as I waited, there came from behind me a hail, and I turned and saw an outrigger canoe with three figures in it. Two of them were muscular Kanakas, and in the stern a young white boy of about fifteen or sixteen. He had the steering paddle, and knew how to handle it, for he laid the canoe deftly under the projecting stern of the wreck.

I began to shake so that I could scarcely speak. A sort of ague took me, and for a moment I could only stare and move my lips without making any sound. One of the Kanakas fended with his paddle, and the white boy was sculling gently with his paddle as he stared at me.

“Did Silverside tell you?” I finally managed to say.

“Silverside? Where is Silverside?” he answered; and his voice had a throaty sound, was low in pitch, and with the trace of a foreign accent. “Was Silverside on that vessel?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “He swam ashore and left me here for the sharks.” A sort of sob broke out of me.

“You had better get in the canoe at once,” said the boy sharply. “That wreck is sinking.”

I crawled over the taffrail, dropped down into the canoe, and lay there, limp and shaking. One of the Kanakas gave a shout and thrust at the wreck with his paddle. As we shot clear there came from the wreck a gurgling, shuddering sigh, and it seemed to lurch toward us as if in a last anguished effort for support. The paddles smote the water, and as we shot clear the mass sagged away, then slid gently under, and I saw a long, banded shape roll over it.

“God!...” I muttered, and wiped my dripping face with my damp sleeve. When presently I looked up again the boy was staring at me curiously, but with an intensity in his look which may have been accentuated by the double row of long black lashes which fringed his clear, grey eyes. He was a handsome youngster, his face youthful but vital, with dark hair clustering in curls about his ears and the back of his head, a short nose, and a mouth which was sensitive but showed a good deal of strength, despite the rather full red lips. He was dressed in white clothes, with a shirt of coarse pongee silk. His sleeves were rolled back from his wrists, and his arms round and strong, but with an ivory skin, which seemed curiously delicate for so vigorous a youngster. The hands which gripped the steering paddle were small and beautifully shaped.

He stared at me silently for a moment or two, then asked:

“Who are you, and where have you come from?”

“It's a long story,” I answered wearily. “My name is Ames, and I am a medical missionary. Who are you?”

He ignored the question to ask:

“You say that Silverside was with you?”

“Yes,” I answered. “We were both kidnapped and taken aboard the yawl by some Chinese, who made Silverside bring them here. They were looking for pearls.”

The boy pressed his paddle vigorously against the stern of the canoe, heading down the beach for the entrance to the inner lagoon. The Kanakas were paddling gently, and trying their best, as I could see, to follow what was being said.

“Where are those Chinese?” asked the boy.

“Drowned or eaten by the sharks,” I answered.

“All of them?”

“Every one. Silverside laid the yawl across the reef.”

“And you say he swam ashore?”

“Yes; he swam straight in and struck across through the bush for the lagoon.”

“Why didn't you go with him? Can't you swim?”

“I can swim like a seal,” I answered, “but I was afraid of the sharks. I did not know that the wreck would sink, and I counted on Silverside's getting a canoe and coming after me. I believe now that he knew that the wreck was going down and wanted me to go with her. Do you mind telling me who you are and how you happen to be here?”

He seemed to hesitate, and a flush rose under his eyes. Then said he:

“I am Jean Berdou. This island belongs to my brother, Gaston Berdou. He has gone to Apia with some shell. My boys saw your sail, and when you did not come in we went to see where you were...”

His speech was cut short by one of the Kanakas, who gave a sudden cry and pointed seaward. We turned to look, and through the far-flung spouting spray saw the sails of a schooner. Under double-reefed mainsail and forestaysail she came flying straight for the outer entrance. The Kanakas stopped paddling to watch her. It was a splendid sight, for she plunged, as it looked, directly into the smother, then, hauling smartly on the wind, bore sturdily along between the reefs, presently to pay off and run into the quieter water. Straight across she held to the entrance of the sheltered lagoon, where a moment later the palms hid her from our sight.

“Is that your brother?” I asked.

“No,” he answered; 'I don't know who that can be.”

“Unmoved, as though surrounded by so many mackerel, Silverside lunged ahead.”

The natives dipped their paddles again. Leaning back I watched Jean Berdou, admiring his supple strength and the grace of his lithe body. He was well grown, long of limb and full chested, and as I studied his brooding face I was less surprised at his brother leaving him in charge.

“How long have you been here?” I asked presently.

“Not very long,” he answered shortly.

“How many of you are now here?” I asked.

“These two boys, three women and myself.” He stared at the masts of the schooner just come in and his face clouded. Something in the expression of the clear eyes and resolute skin and the shape of the straight, little nose, with its slight upward tilt, impressed me as singularly familiar.

“You seem rather young to be in charge of the island, are you not?” I asked.

“I am old enough,” he answered, with a tone of impatience that was scarcely polite.

“And are you already at home with natives and canoes and island life? It is remarkable.”

His forehead contracted slightly, and he paddled with added vigour.

“Did you come here directly from France?” I asked.

His grey eyes contracted. “No,” he answered, shortly. “I was at school in Auckland ... and my brother told me that I was not to talk to strangers ... should any come here.”

“You need not be afraid to talk to me,” I answered. “If you are Gaston Berdou's brother, then Therese Fairfax must be your sister.”

He gave a gasp and the paddle slipped from his hands. I caught it as it drifted past. As I handed it back to him I noticed that the warm colour had left his face and his grey eyes were open very wide.

“What do you know about Therese Fairfax?” he demanded.

“My father, who was missionary at Hiti, in the Low Archipelago, married your sister to her husband. Now Fairfax is dead, and has left a big fortune to her and the child, Delphine. He asked me to find them. Will you tell me where they are?”

Jean stopped paddling to stare at me. The colour came back into his face, and a positive glare came into the self-sufficient, boyish face.

“I will tell you nothing,” said he passionately. “If you are looking for my ... my sister, you had better go back where you came from. She wants nothing to do with Daniel Fairfax, living or dead. We have enough already. Perhaps the captain of this schooner will take you aboard. We will go and see.”

A sudden gust of anger swept over me. God knows that, after what I had just passed through, anger or any emotion like it should have been the last emotion I ought to have felt. Perhaps my nerves were a bit ragged, and I was hardly to be blamed if they were. But it struck me suddenly that here was a nice return for a man who had risked what I had for the sake of carrying out a behest. Of course, I was being richly rewarded for it should I succeed, but I had really put that part of it out of my mind. In any case, the benefit was for the sake of carrying on my father's work, not for myself. And all of this being true, it was rather too much to be snubbed by this sprig of a French boy.

I leaned forward, gripping the gunnel in both hands.

“My young friend,” said I, “you are taking far too much for granted. Don't think that, because you have been left in charge of a heap of rotting pearl-oysters, you are to decide on the destinies of older and wiser persons than yourself. I have risked my life to find Therese Fairfax and fulfil a trust. I chartered a schooner and went to Auckland to look for your brother, Gaston Berdou. Now that I find that he is coming here I shall stay here and wait for him, so don't let us have any more of this high-handed nonsense.” I turned to the Kanaka behind me. “Take me to the bungalow,” I said, in the dialect which was almost my mother tongue, and which I had never forgot. “I am the son of Misi Ames, of the Paumotas, and I have business with your master, Gaston Berdou. This child annoys me with his chatter. Do as I say.”

The two Kanakas exchanged a swift glance. Jean, his face furious, half-raised himself, gripping the paddle. I leaned forward and wrenched it out of his hand.

“Go to the shore ... to the bungalow ...” I roared at the men behind me. “I have had enough of foolery. I wish to eat and sleep.”

Without a word they dipped their paddles. I leaned forward, took Jean by the wrist, and jerked him out of his place as if he had been a child of three.

“Sit down there and don't bother me,” I snapped; “I'll steer, myself.”

X.

Rather to my surprise, the Kanakas did not protest against my treatment of Jean, but paddled on stolidly. The boy had sunk down into the bottom of the canoe, and was eyeing me with an odd expression which was more examining than resentful. No doubt he felt ashamed of his inhospitality to a shipwrecked man, especially to one whose errand was to bring fortune to his family.

We reached the end of the sandspit, and saw the schooner lying at anchor off a grove of pandanus palms which surrounded the bungalow. She was not a large vessel—seventy tons or thereabouts, I guessed, and as we drew closer aboard I noticed that she was rather clumsy as to lines, and as though her builders had tried at the last moment to give her some pretension to shapeliness, the bow and stern overhang seemed unnecessarily long, and went oddly with her chunky amidships section. A black crew which swarmed over her like ants were furling her sails, and in on the beach we saw one of her boats with a knot of dark, naked figures about it.

I headed directly in for the boat, and as we got closer one of the Kanakas stopped paddling, shaded his eyes with his hand, and stared at the natives on the beach.

“Black men from the islands to the west,” said he. “Those are not good people, Missi.”

Jean Berdou raised his supple body and stared shoreward with a frown on his square, boyish face.

“Melanesians,” he said; “they look like the cannibals and head hunters from the Solomons. I wish that Gaston were here,” he added uneasily.

We shot the canoe in on to the beach, the cluster of savages about the whaleboat watching us apathetically. They were of the true Melanesian type—black, negroid of build, with dome-shaped heads and features grotesquely disfigured. One could scarcely have found a less prepossessing group, and as I looked at them it occurred to me that here was the sort of human hyena at the hands of which my father had met his fate. I was conscious of a bristling along the spine as I looked at the black, squatting figures, and my grip tightened involuntarily on the paddle. Then I glanced down to see Jean Berdou staring up at me.

“I wonder what they want?” he asked uneasily.

“We can soon tell,” I answered. “Here comes a white man.”

Out from the shrubbery which hid the bungalow strode a bearded man in white clothes and a Panama hat. Jean and I had leaped ashore, and as the boy stood at my shoulder I was surprised to see how tall and well made he was. Yet his build was unlike that of an Anglo-Saxon or Teuton or Scandinavian youth, for, though well proportioned and straight as a good ash oar, he was light of frame and running more to curves than angles—flesh rather than bone.

“I do not like the look of this man,” said he in an undertone.

I did not like it myself. The fellow was of medium height, lean but muscular, red-faced, with a high-bridged nose and small blue eyes set close together. A bushy red beard, shot with grey, hid the lower part of his face, and his age seemed about fifty. His sleeves, which seemed rather tight, were too short for his long, powerful arms, and showed his brawny wrists, hairy as the arms of an ape, with heavy condyles and rope-like sinews. There was a swagger to his gait, and he carried a heavy revolver in a holster on the front of his belt.

“I wish ye good evenin',” said he, in a harsh voice, and his swinish little eyes passed from one to the other of us, resting curiously on my soaked and tattered clothes. “And who may I have the pleasure of addressin'?”

Before I could answer, Jean spoke up quickly.

“Visitors are expected to introduce themselves,” said he, in his low-pitched voice.

The man laughed, showing his strong, yellow teeth, which were set in a peculiar curve, those in the middle being very short and the canines and eye teeth heavy as those of a wolf.

“A lesson in politeness for ye, Sandy, lad,” said he. “Well, then, my young master, I am Captain Cullom, by trade a pearler. From the smell beyond the bungalow I'd hazard a guess that we were business rivals.”

“This island belongs to my brother,” said Jean.

Cullom raised his bushy eyebrows.

“Does it, now? I would have said, at a guess, that it belonged to the British Empire, but your brother has no doubt made his title offeecial? Now your brother would be Gaston Berdou, perhaps?”

“Yes,” answered Jean shortly.

“And this gentleman?” he looked at me.

“My name is Douglas,” I answered, for the moment I had heard the name of Cullom there flashed across my mind that the man before me must be no other than the notorious sea brigand whom my father had tried so hard to send to gaol, and who, from all report, had managed to defeat justice through the efforts of Von Bulow.

Cullom's eyes were resting on me with a puzzled stare.

“I think we have met before, sir,” said he, “though I canna' call to mind just where. Y'are not related to the Douglasses o' Belfast, Ireland? 'Tis my native town.”

“No,” I answered, and understood the curious mixture of Scotch and Irish accent in the harsh voice. I knew also what perplexed the man; it was my likeness to my father, whom he had good cause to remember.

“Will you come to the house?” asked Jean, none too cordially.

“Thank ye, kindly,” said Cullom. “I do not like to be long away from the schooner, havin' naught but a black crew, and my Portuguese mate is ashore with three of the boys, doin' a bit foragin'”; he nodded his shaggy head in the direction of the bungalow.

I glanced at Jean. The boy's face had gone suddenly white.

“You had better take your mate aboard with you,” said he. “If you need fowls or fruit or vegetables, I will send them out to you. I do not want strangers to help themselves. My brother has left me in charge, and he will be here in a day or two.”

I knew what was in his mind; the shell heaps and their precious contents. Cullom threw back his head with a bare-toothed laugh.

“'Tis a fine spirit ye have, Master Berdou,” said he, and his eyes rested intently on Jean. “A fine boy, is he not?” he asked, and looked at me with a grin which I was at a loss to understand. “But as for your brother, I fear that y'are meesinformed. He sailed from Apia a week ago for Tahiti, and cannot get here for a month at the least. A canny body, Gaston Berdou ... but there are those of his crew for whom I couldna' say as much.”

“Do you mean that somebody aboard the Rossignol told you about this place?” Jean demanded.

“That would be tellin', me brave lad. Listen now to me. There is wealth enough here for us both. The bottom is fair carpeted' wi' the molluscs. Never have I seen sharks swarm as here, and that is always a sign. To-morrow my black gang will go swimmin', and we will see. A man should not be unraysonable ... nor a boy...” and again his twinkling pig's eyes turned on Jean, and the hairy depression that marked his mouth parted to disclose the yellow teeth and a tongue like that of a parrot. A curious leer shone from his face as he grinned and stared at Jean. He threw back his shaggy head and laughed noiselessly, then looked at me and winked. I was puzzled and angry, and as I glanced at the boy I saw that his face was crimson and his grey eyes shining dangerously.

But I was wet and tired and hungry, and wanted to be rid of the fellow, who obviously had the situation in his own hands. So I turned somewhat impatiently to Jean, and was about to speak, when from the distance there rang out three rifle shots.

“Damnation ...” cried Cullom, and his hand flew to his revolver. “Now what is the meanin' o' that?” He glared at Jean. The savage irony of his face had undergone a lightning change, and the man looked like a wolf. “How many folk have ye here?” he snarled.

Jean shrank back. “Only these two,” said he, pointing at the Kanakas, who were loitering, ill at ease, and throwing furtive glances at the boat's crew.

Cullom shouted some order, and three of the Melanesians sprang to their feet and ran off down the beach. We waited. There came a wild yell, followed by another distant report. There was a clamour of cries, and a moment later two of the boat's crew came scuffing up the beach carrying the body of a man in white clothes. The natives ran, with their chins on their shoulders, looking back towards the mass of tangled vegetation which rose steeply behind the beach.

Cullom cursed ferociously, and, snatching his revolver from the holster sprang to meet them.

“What's this ... what's this...?” he roared, then stopped, turned, and beckoned to us to follow.

“Silverside ...” I muttered to Jean. “He must have gone to the house and armed himself while you were away....”

“What's this y'are sayin'?” bawled Cullom. “Here's my mate Antonio done for. He stepped forward and gripped Jean by the shoulder. “Who fired yon shots?” he snarled.

I do not think that he meant more than to frighten the boy, but his weapon was half-raised, his face murderous, and as his heavy grip fell on Jean's shoulder the lad shrank back with a sharp cry. The next instant a big, dark form hurtled past me, and I saw one of our Kanaka paddlers leap for Cullom's throat. There was a violent report, a puff of bluish smoke, and the man plunged face forward on the sand, his body jerking spasmodically. The other native turned and bolted for the bush, when Cullom, as coolly as one would pot at a running goat, flung up his weapon, aimed, and fired. The Kanaka screamed, flung wide both arms, and fell backward, his knees buckling under him.

Cullom whirled toward me, and I thought for an instant that my turn was coming next. But he seemed to recover himself, and stood glaring from Jean to me, the smoking revolver hanging in his grip.

“Now, here's a way o' treatin' peaceful folk,” he snarled. “Who is this ye've got, back there in the bush? Answer me quick, Master Berdou. And you ...” He turned on me. “What do ye here in drippin' rags and the face of a drowned dog?” His face was blotchy and congested, and his small blue eyes beginning to dance like those of a boar about to charge. “Who is that skulkin' in the bush, firin' on strangers and honest men?”

“Silverside,” I answered.

“What say ye? Silverside....” The snarling voice rose in pitch, and he cast a quick, furtive look toward the hillside. There was no mistaking the fright in his face. “Silverside, ye tell me? That hell hound that sailed wi' Fairfax?”

“Yes,” I answered; “he is Berdou's man.”

Cullom shot a glance toward the body of his mate. The natives had laid it down, and a single look told me that the man was dead. Cullom stepped to the corpse, pushed it with his foot, then asked a few rapid questions. He was listening to their replies, gnawing at the side of his thumb, when there came from above us out of the tangle on the hillside the crack of a rifle, and Cullom's hat went spinning to the sand. He cursed, snatched it up, then turned and grasped Jean by the arm.

“Come wi' me ...” he snarled, “and you, too.” and he waved the muzzle of his revolver in my direction.

There was nothing else to do, so we formed in a little knot and moved down to the boat, the cannibal crew clustering about us in answer to a command of Cullom's. The man was furious but frightened, and I could see the relief in his congested features as we gradually hauled clear of the shore. Half-way to the schooner he pulled off his hat, stared for a moment at the bullet-hole in the crown, then drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face.

“Silverside ...” he muttered, and stared back at the land, then looked at me, scowling and plucking at his beard.

“There's my mate and three divers gone,” he growled. “A nice welcome to a harmless crew.”

“They should have left the shell heap alone,” retorted Jean.

“Say ye so? We will talk o' shell-heaps later ... and other things, my pretty lad....”

Again his face was lit by the baleful grin which had puzzled me, and again Jean's face went suddenly pale.

“To-morrow there'll be no divin',” said Cullom. “The ordher o' the day, twill be a hunt ... and Silverside the ould grey fox. I will offer a bounty for his pelt, and I have hounds here will run him to earth. Silverside ... that spawn o' the de'il ...” and he grew silent, looking back often at the jungle-clad side of the hill.

We shot alongside and went aboard. Cullom ordered us below, and as I entered the schooner's cabin I was conscious of an odd and eerie feeling—that elusive sensation which sometimes comes over one of something familiar and accustomed. For some amazing reason I felt myself strangely at home in the place. Even before I had looked about I had the consciousness of knowing the appearance of things, the dimensions and arrangement. I seemed to have been there before ... and with Jean, who for some reason kept close to me, his shoulder almost touching mine. Glancing at his face, I saw that it was colourless, and his grey eyes held an expression of sick terror. I put it down to the reaction of what he had just witnessed, for over on the beach he had shown a bold face, surprising in a boy of his years, and it did not seem to me that we were in any immediate danger.

The savagery of Cullom's mood seemed to abate on coming aboard. In fact, the knowledge that he had Silverside to reckon with seemed to have sobered him. Following us into the cabin he went to a locker and got out a bottle of whiskey and some glasses, which he set on the cabin table,

“A bad business, Misther Douglas,” said he, mildly enough, and shaking his shaggy head. “Ye will obsairve, both o' ye, that I acted in self-defence. Take a drop wuskey, man; you look as if ye needed it. And give some to the lad ... though wuskey is not good for boys....” And he attempted a facetious wink.

I poured out some whiskey, of which I stood badly in need. Cullom tossed off a tumblerful and leaned back with a deep breath, then smote his broad chest with his two hairy fists.

“Mind ye now,” said he, “had I known 'twas Silverside pottin' at us from the bush I would have spared yon two Kanakas. I thought 'twas a general attack, not the workin' out of an ould grudge. Belike the scaly de'il was waitin' for me by the shell heap. There'll be no divin' done 'til Silverside is laid by the heels ... and that will no be so easy I'm fearin'.” He scowled at his empty glass.

“Then you know him,” said I.

“Wi' good reason,” growled Cullom. He poured himself another drink, and gulped the strong spirit without a blink. “So he is now Berdou's man. Hu! I'll be askin' the two o' ye to stop aboard until this affair is settled. Ye may have the leeberty o' the vessel, but do not try to get ashore. Small danger that ye will wi' the lagoon swarmin' as it does wi' sharks. My black boys will ferret out Silverside, and ask no better sport. When I have the craychure where he can do no more mischief, then we will consider the pearls ... and other things.” He shot a look at Jean Berdou. “No doubt brither Gaston and I can come to terms,” said he. Jean did not answer. Cullom hove himself to his feet, stepped to a state-room door, and flung it open.

“Ye may berth here,” said he. “There are two bunks, and friend Antonio will not be needin' the one nor the other, thanks to that reptile Silverside. Should ye not agree ...” and he looked at Jean with his dog-toothed grin, “Master Berdou can curl up in a cosy berth off my own room. Perhaps that would be better.”

“Cullom, as coolly as one would pot at a running goat, flung up his weapon, aimed, and fired.”

“I will sleep near my friend,” said Jean faintly.

“As ye like. I'm hopin' we'll all be friends, good friends, when we get a bit acquain' wi' one anither. I will now be goin' up to arrange for the takin' o' Silverside. Help yourself to the mate's clothes, Misther Douglas; I misdoubt ye need them more than he.”

Another swash of whisky, and he got up and went on deck. I looked at Jean. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes burning.

“Why did you tell him it was Silverside?” he asked.

“Why not?” I answered wearily. “It turned out well for us, and I certainly have no reason for wanting to spare Silverside. God knows he hasn't spared me, though I got kidnapped by Sam Lung trying to rescue him.” And in a few words I told Jean the story. He listened with his cheek in his hand.

“My brother owes everything to Silverside,” he said.

“Your sister owes still more,” I answered. “But for my part I loathe the man. He is a monomaniac.”

“What is that?”

“A person with but a single idea. Outside of his devotion to Therese Fairfax he is scarcely human. He goes about getting his ends with no thought of mercy or conscience or compassion. He strangled Daniel Fairfax with his own hands when the man was dying...”

“What?” cried Jean, starting up. “He did not do that...”

“There is no doubt of it,” said I. “He told me so himself ...” And I went on to describe my meeting with Fairfax and what had happened afterwards.

“But why did you do this?” asked Jean. “Are you paid for it?”

“I am very highly paid for it,” I answered. “I am to receive a hundred thousand dollars if I succeed.”

The dark lashes opened wider, then closed again. It seemed to me that there was the faintest expression of contempt in his expressive face.

“Ah,” said he, “that explains why you took such a foolish chance with the coolies.”

“Very likely,” I answered wearily. “But to get down to the present, we seem to be Cullom's guests, or hostages, or prisoners, and we might as well make the best of it. I'm nearly dead for want of sleep, and after being ship-mates with a gang of Chinese I'm not above my new quarters nor overhauling the defunct mate's wardrobe, for that matter.” I looked down at my damp, dirty, ragged “whites.” “No wonder you took me for a beach-comber. Speaking of the mate, it was a pity that your Kanaka boys had to be sacrificed...”

I paused, cursing my unrestrained tongue, for Jean had gone suddenly white again. His eyes opened very wide, and he looked at me with a peculiarly intent and staring gaze. As I watched him he caught his breath. The tears gushed between the long, black lashes, and without a word he crossed his arms on the table in front of him and began to weep with the silent intensity of a brave but broken-hearted child.

I stood for a moment watching the bowed, curly head and the heaving shoulders. I was too exhausted to feel much more emotion of any kind, but I realised what the youngster had been through and how bravely he had stood the ordeal, so that when his sobbing threatened to grow more unrestrained I leaned over, threw my arm across his shoulders and dropped my hand on his thick, dark-chestnut hair.

“Come, old chap,” said I, “it's awfully tough I know, but we've all got to finish one day, and the two boys didn't suffer. Buck up, old fellow; it won't do to let this brute Cullom know that we're in danger of losing our nerve. Your brother will blow in here some day, and then there's going to be something doing....”

Gradually, as I talked, Jean's sobbing grew quieter and presently ceased. He looked up, and at something in the expression of his face I stared, puzzled and startled.

“Jean...” I cried.

He flung out both arms with a hopeless gesture.

“I am not Jean,” said he, in his low-pitched voice. “That is not my name. Berdou is not my name.”

“Then who are you, in Heaven's name....”

“I am ... I am ...” the answer came faintly, between deep, sobbing breaths. “I am Delphine Fairfax.”

I stepped back, staring down at the bowed head in amazement and dismay. Delphine Fairfax ... I might have known. A young girl and in the hands of the worst scoundrel in the Pacific. And did Cullom know ... had he guessed? Of course. Any ordinary fool could not have helped but guess. I thought of the leering stares ... the dog-toothed grins.

“Delphine Fairfax ...” I repeated. “And Gaston Berdou ... your brother ... what was he thinking of to leave you here alone?”

Delphine raised her pale, tear-stained face.

“Somebody had to stay. There is a fortune in that heap that is rotting out, down the beach. And she had to go to meet Silverside.”

“She?” I echoed. “Who?”

Delphine smiled faintly.

“Gaston Berdou is my mother,” said she quietly.

XI.

Either because I was past the point where I could be surprised at anything, or because of some sort of sub-conscious suspicion which had been lurking in the back of my mind, this news caused me no great shock. But it suggested no end of questions, and not knowing at what minute Cullom might come below I began to bombard the young girl.

“How long has your mother been known as Gaston Berdou?” I asked.

“For about six or seven years,” answered Delphine. “A schooner came and took us away from the island where Daniel Fairfax had left us. We went first to Auckland, where I was put in a girls' school which was managed by an English clergyman and his wife. Then my mother went with this captain to an island where he had a station, and he placed her in charge. She was dressed as a man, then, and took the name of Gaston Berdou, because she was always afraid that Daniel Fairfax might come back to look for her. Nobody knew that she was a woman.”

“Who was this captain?” I asked.

“An American named Walker. His vessel was lost with all hands in a typhoon two years or more ago. Then Silverside came in a schooner and got my mother, and they came to Auckland and took me out of the school. I had been there for nearly five years. Mother told me that from that time on I must be a boy, and bought me boys' clothes. Silverside went away, and mother brought the schooner here. She had been taught how to navigate by Daniel Fairfax, and Keowa Harry was mate.”

“Keowa Harry,” I cried, for I remembered the Kanaka boy as my father's right hand man. It was big Keowa Harry who had taught me to swim and fish and handle a canoe and many other island accomplishments.

“Yes,” said Delphine. “Silverside got him. All the rest of the crew are Kanakas also, and very good men. We built this bungalow, and got the pearl oysters with diving armour. That was nearly two years ago.”

“And has nobody else come in here?” I asked.

“No. Sometimes vessels have passed, but the island is reported as uninhabited and the entrance very dangerous, so nobody tries to come. Besides, there is no water for a part of the year.”

“Do you think that this man Cullom knows that Gaston Berdou is a woman?” I asked, lowering my voice.

Delphine threw me a frightened look. “I am not sure,” she answered, “but he knew that I was a girl the instant he saw me. I could see it in his eyes. I ... I am horribly afraid of him.” She shuddered, then drew a little closer to me.

I thought of Cullom's gloating leer as he had stared at the girl, and all of the fatigue which I had felt rolled away from me as one might shed a wet cloak. Even when I had thought that she was a boy I had been strongly attracted to Delphine, but now this feeling became of a sudden a strong, protective force. I no longer felt afraid of Cullom and his cannibal crew. It was for me to stand between the girl and any possible harm. I rose to my feet, and, stepping to her side, dropped my hand on her shoulder.

“Don't be afraid,” said I. “The man is a brute and a bully, but he is a coward, too. Even aboard this vessel, with his gang of head hunters around him, he's afraid of Silverside. Did you see how his face changed when he learned that it was he? He will not dare do you any harm. And he is by no means sure of me.”

“Why did you tell him that your name was Douglas?” asked Delphine.

“Because he was my father's worst enemy,” I answered, and I told her of how my father had tried to send him to gaol or the gallows.

“Cullom wants two things badly,” said I; “he wants Silverside and he wants the pearls. I do not think that he will try to do much about the pearls, though, until he has got Silverside, and from what I have seen of that person I do not worry much about his ability to take care of himself. Don't be afraid, Delphine; we are going to come out of this scrape all right. I'd better overhaul the mate's locker now, and see if I can find something less filthy to wear than what I have got on. Wait for me here and whatever happens don't let Cullom get you far from me on any pretext.”

Delphine did not answer. She was staring at me intently, and a little of the colour had come back into her face. It was a charming face, now that I saw it in the light of her true sex—lovely of contour, sweet and strong.

“How old are you?” she asked abruptly.

“Twenty-four,” I answered. “Why?”

“Because ... I couldn't tell. You seemed very young at first and now you seem suddenly to have grown older.”

“I am older,” I answered, turned to the state-room.

Rather to my surprise I found the place as neat as wax, and on overhauling the effects of the dead mate I came to the conclusion that the man must have been a bit of a dandy, for he had a quantity of very decent things. I stripped and rubbed myself down with some sort of toilet water which bore the name of a Paris perfumerie. Rummaging the drawers, I came on some curious objects—curling irons, very slender, and apparently designed for the beard and moustache; the photograph of a very pretty woman in a silver frame; a little can of paste for bleaching the complexion; a woman's handkerchief with a tiny coronet in one corner; a little morocco notebook which contained some scribbled verses, a few epigrams and a sketch of the same face that was in the silver frame, done as a vignette with a chaplet of grape leaves, and apparently meant to represent a bacchante; and, farther on, what appeared to be a record of winning numbers on a roulette table, with two or three pages of figures, as of a system being worked out. There were many silk cravats and some soft collars, the whole sprinkled with revolver cartridges. Last of all I found a real prize: a pearl-handled revolver, unloaded, but in which the cartridges fitted. This I quickly loaded and dropped into my pocket with a dozen or so of cartridges. I wondered that Cullom had not overhauled the place before assigning it to Delphine and myself, but judged that he must have been too upset by the events of the last two hours to have thought about it. In this I was no doubt right, for I had just finished dressing, and was trying to get some order to my matted hair, when I heard him stumbling down the companionway, and a moment later he flung open the door. Glancing past him, I saw Delphine sitting at the table, her arms crossed in front of her, and her forehead resting on them, either asleep or pretending to be. The light was growing dim.

Cullom stood for a moment staring at me, and from the reek of liquor that came from him and his unsteady swaying I saw that he was well along in drink.

“Y'are a long time prinkin',” said he, and added, suspiciously, “maybe ye have found somethin' interestin'?

“You are right,” I answered, “I have. Your mate seems to have been a bit of a swell. What was he, anyhow?”

“What hae' ye found?” demanded Cullom.

“A note-book with a system for beating a roulette game,” I answered. “It's there in the locker. And a lot of other stuff.”

Cullom nodded. “Antonio was a croupier in the gamin' halls at Macao,” he answered. “He cam' aboord one night wi' a great stack o' money which na' doot he had won by this same system. I was mate on the Esperanza at the time ... a little steamer runnin' fra' Hong Kong to Manila. We had a bit talk, and whacked up and bought this schooner to look for pearls.”

“Indeed!” I answered.

“'Twas like that. Antonio said he was Portuguese, but I misdoubt he was a Frinch naval officer sometime, cashiered belike for some irregular'rity. What else hae ye found, Misther Douglas?” And the swinish eyes glinted suspiciously.

“It's all here in the lockers,” I answered. “You might overhaul 'em. Perhaps you'll find a clue to missing heirs.”

There was a touch of humour in the man, for he cackled harshly.

“Belike,” said he. And began to rummage in the mass of stuff that I had already overhauled.

Delphine had raised her head and was looking in our direction. I stepped through the door and sat down beside her. Cullom fumbled about in the state-room for a few minutes, then came out, and stood with his big knuckles resting on the edge of the table, looking down at us.

“Hae a bit wuskey,” said he, “and gi' a bit to the boy....” And he grinned at Delphine.

Look here, captain,” said I, “let's chuck this nonsense. You know and I know that this young lady is Daniel Fairfax's daughter. But what you may not know is that Daniel Fairfax is dead, and that his daughter, Miss Fairfax”—and I looked at Delphine—is heiress to a couple of million and odd dollars. I came out here express to find her ... and I'm only waiting here for Gaston Berdou.”

Cullom's grin seemed to fade on his face. He looked from one to the other of us with the expression of a man who hunts for some hidden collusion, some prearranged trick. Finally his twinkling blue eyes, bright for the moment from the alcohol he had drunk, rested on me.

“Wha's a'a this y'are gie'n us?” he asked.

“It's the Lord's truth,” I snapped, for I saw that, drunk as he was, the man was impressed. “Daniel Fairfax is dead, leaving a couple of million he dug out of the Alaska goldfields, and his wife and daughter have only to claim it. I came out here to find them ... and the whole federal law of the United States is back of me. So don't let's have any more of this boy business about Miss Fairfax. You are apt to see a gunboat poking in here any day looking for her.”

This, of course, was sheer bluff, but I had seen that the man was impressed, and determined to play my cards for all they were worth. Cullom goggled at me for a moment, then sank down on a locker against the bulkhead and leaned across the table. He reached for the bottle and poured himself a drink. Fumbling with his glass, he looked up at Delphine, and there was no mistaking the changed expression in his face. Yet there was a furtive twinkle in the blue eyes that puzzled me. His next drunken words were significant.

“'Tis a great thing to inherit a lar'rge fortune,” said he, “always providin' y'are there to claim it.”

“You can help out that part of it, captain,” said I. “And let me tell you that you will not lose anything by it either.”

His cunning gaze shifted to my face.

“Who kna' what a man might lose in quittin' a lagoon sewn thick wi' pearls, Misther Douglas?” said he.

“Now that you know where it is you can always come back to it,” I answered.

“And find a gunboat guardin' the indhustry? Nae doot.”

“Well,” said I, “have it your own way. Do what you think is going to profit you best. Only remember you've still got Gaston Berdou to reckon with.”

His face, crimson from the whisky he had drunk, seemed to darken.

“A daft 'ooman,” said he, and snapped his fingers.

So here it was out. I was going to say more, when there came from close aboard a clamour of native voices. Cullom's face seemed to change, and he sprang to his feet, glared at us for a second, then sprang for the companionway. We heard him stamping about overhead, roaring like a bull. A boat bumped alongside. The jabbering rose in crescendo, and held a ferocious quality that made the hair bristle at the nape of my neck. Cullom was cursing in a steady stream. I could not hear the words, but there was no mistaking the inflection.

Presently we heard his heavy tread across the deck, and he came below. It was getting dark, and Cullom paused with his head and shoulders above the hatch to bawl forward, as I guessed, to tell the cabin boy to light up. We could not see his face when he came down, and for several moments he stood puffing and snarling as if to himself.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Hell's wrong ...” he growled. “That de'il Silverside. I sent a boat ashore to see was there aught to eat or drink. The bungalow was locked, and no sooner had they set foot on the threshold than there cam' twa shots fra' the bush, and here was a couple o' my best hands gone to glory.”

“You did well not to go yourself,” said I.

Cullom turned on me savagely.

“Don't taunt me, young man,” he snarled. “I'll go to-morrow, sure enough, and we'll see who's the slier: Silverside or the red fox o' Dornoch.”

“Dornoch?” said I. “Then you're not a Belfaster?”

“Ne'er mind what I am,” growled Cullom, “I'm a cannier man than Silverside.”

Dinner was not much of a success, either from a social or culinary point of view. Cullom had drunk himself into a state of savage sarcasm, and waited on Delphine with exaggerated politeness. His intoxication appeared to have reached its limit, however, and, although he continued to drink, I could not see that it affected him further.

“'Tis not much of a meal to set before an heiress,” said he. “Permeet me to offer ye another pomme de terre, Miss Fairfax. I wonder ye dinna' wear your pearls when dinin' out. Fill the young lady's glass, Mr. Douglas, will ye, please? 'Twas too bad Antonio could not ha' remained wi' us a leetle longer. He had a way wi' the wimmen, had Antonio. I mind the night he did his getaway fra' Macao and cam' aboard the schooner....”

“I thought you said it was aboard the Esmeralda?” I interrupted.

Cullom turned on me an owlish glare, but it seemed to me his face had an odd, frightened look. It passed on the instant, and he answered harshly.

“A slip o' the tongue, Mr. Douglas. The Esmeralda it was ... and she sailin' for Manila. Y'are quick to pick a man up. Permeet me to offer ye a bit o' this castor ... I mean, olive oil, wi' the tinned sock-eye, Miss Fairfax. I am sorry the champagne has run out. 'Twas all consumed in entertainin' his R'yal Majesty, the King o' the Cannibal Islands.”

He kept on in this garrulous strain until the meal was over, when he lighted a pipe and went on deck, apparently tiring of the one-sided entertainment. Delphine and I looked at each other in the dim light of the standing lamp.

“What a horrible brute!” she murmured.

“There are not much worse, I imagine,” said I. “Did you notice how he looked when I picked him up about the schooner? The chances are it was a put up game to rob the casino. The man is no better than a pirate, lacking only the pirate's courage. He will not try to play us any tricks.”

“I wish we could get ashore,” said Delphine.

“With Cullom's black gang loose on the island you are better off here,” I answered. “Cullom is a greedy swine, and now that he knows that you are to inherit a big fortune he will probably try to make a bargain to land you in a place of safety for a good round sum. You see, you are practically held for ransom. But first he wants to lay hands on Silverside and have a go at the pearls. If what he said about Gaston Berdou was true, he will have time to go through the shell-heap and do some diving and clear out before your mother gets back, though I don't think that with the gang he has got in his crew and the dozen or so of divers he is bothering his head very much about being chucked out.”

“I turned to the last pages. Delphine dropped her hand on my shoulder, and I could feel her quick breath fanning against my cheek.”

I was rambling along, half asleep, when Delphine interrupted me.

“You look used up,” said she. “You had better turn in and get a good sleep. There's no telling what may happen, and. you ought to be fit.” She slanted her head, regarding me quizzically through her long black lashes; then said, with perfect seriousness:

“It's too bad you haven't a razor.”

I laughed outright. The yellow stubble on my face was half an inch long, and anything but becoming, but it seemed an odd time to think of that.

“There is one in the poor mate's locker,” I answered, “but I was too tired to bother. I'll tackle it in the morning.”

Delphine stared at me curiously for a few moments.

“I am very tired, too,” said she. “I am going to bed. I shall sleep in the top bunk. You may sleep underneath.” She gave me a steady look from her clear, grey eyes. “I feel safer when you are near me. We will shut the door and lock it,” said she.

I nodded, then said gently:

“You have been through an ordeal that would give most girls nervous prostration, and it is going to be still harder, in a way. Cullom is an awful brute, but I don't think that he will dare to bother you in any way. He's after the pearls ... and Silverside. But until we get out of this fix I want you to think of me as a big brother ... and I shall think of you as my dear little sister, and try to make it all as easy for you as I can. Will you do that? I shall call you 'Delphine,' and you must call me 'Douglas,' and it will be exactly as if we were brother and sister. until we get clear of this mess.”

She looked at me intently for a moment; then her long lashes swept down.

“And when we do get out of it,” she asked. “Then won't you be my big brother any more? I've always wished I had a big brother.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I will be your big brother as long as you want me to be.”

“I think that will be always;” she answered, and there came a tinge of colour under her eyes as she added: “unless you get tired of your little sister.”

“There is no danger of that,” I answered, and for some silly reason could feel my face getting red almost as soon as I had spoken. “But just the same,” I added, “I'm glad that you are not really my sisver.”

“Why?” asked Delphine, dropping her chin in her hand and staring at me under her black lashes.

“Because,” I answered, “if you were you might marry, and have some other man to take care of you ... and I'd rather take care of you myself.”

She gave a little smile, then rose.

“I am going to bed,” said she. “Good-night big brother ...” and she walked into the state room, climbed on to the upper bunk, and stretched her lithe body with a sigh of weariness, turning her face to the ship's side.

XII.

As soon as Delphine's slow and even breathing told me that she was asleep I slipped off my shoes and coat, stole into the state-room and closed and locked the door. As I stretched myself out in the lower bunk I was conscious again of that indefinable sense of familiarity with my surroundings which I have already mentioned. An air of “wontedness” seemed to pervade the place; a strange thing considering our position on a craft which was little better than a pirate, and at the mercy of a drunken ruffian and his cannibal crew. Beside the eight or so hands required to handle the vessel Cullom had a gang of native divers, eight or ten I judged, for he had said at dinner that he found them cheaper and just as efficient as trained men in diving armour.

For the first part of the night I was plunged in the dreamless oblivion of utter unconsciousness, and then I had a nightmare. I thought that I had fallen overboard from my father's little brig, the Christian Faith, and that a great, banded shark was about to take me. The monster was at some distance, and there was time for me to make the ladder and scramble-up, but the water seemed like glue, and struggle as I did I could make no progress. Closer and closer came the shark. I tried to scream, but the sticky water got in my mouth and choked me. Then, as I was about to be seized, my father leaned over the rail and stretched out his hand to me. His arm seemed to grow longer and longer until it had reached the length of a boat-hook. It fastened on my wrist and drew me up and on to the deck, where I sank down weak and nerveless.

“Don't be afraid, sonny,” said my father; “I will give you a charm to hang around your neck so that no shark will ever dare to come near you.” He led me below, and gave me a great pearl strung on a thread of black silk. “Now go to your berth and rest,” said he, “but be careful that nobody gets the charm.” So I went to my berth and lay down, but I thought to myself: “What if Sandy Cullom should come and steal my pearl while I am asleep.” The idea worried me, and I decided to put the charm in a little secret hiding place that Keowa Harry, who was an expert joiner, had devised in the ceiling beside my bunk. By striking a certain butt of scantling a sharp thump with the ball of one's hand the piece opened out on a pivot, the part struck swinging inward. One could then reach into a snug little locker between the sealing and the skin of the vessel.

Wishing to hide my pearl from Sandy Cullom, I turned over and struck the butt of the scantling ... and the same instant I awoke with a gasp of pain, for I must have struck very hard in my sleep. I felt a hand on my wrist, and there came a rustle from the bunk above.

“Are you awake?” said Delphine's low voice.

“Yes,” I answered. And felt her grasp loosen on my wrist.

“You were having a nightmare,” said she. “You said 'Father ... father ... a shark ..'. and reached up your hand. I took your wrist, thinking to quiet you. I am not surprised that you should have a nightmare.”

“Thank you, little sister,” said I. And added quickly: “Hello ... what's this?”

For a piece of planking was sticking out against me, and as I raised my head it struck against my cheek.

For an instant I was dumb from sheer bewilderment. Where was I? Could another man have made just such another hiding place in the identical spot as mine was? And then a thought flashed through my head which nearly caused my heart to stop beating. But no ... it was impossible ... absurd. The Christian Faith had been a stumpy brig. This vessel was a long and not ungraceful schooner, although a bit full amidships for the lines of bow and stern. Her cabin was smaller, too, and had but two state-rooms, whereas the Christian Faith had four and a big room under the companionway. And yet...”

“What is the matter?” asked Delphine.

“I have made a discovery ... I think,” said I, and my voice sounded strange to me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Wait a minute.” I slipped out of the bunk, unlocked the door and softly opened it. There was a standing light in the cabin, and from the room opposite came the sound of Cullom's drunken snores. By the dim glow of the lamp I saw the dark hole in the sealing. I slipped in my hand and drew out a book. Holding it to the light I saw that it was bound in leather and covered with a coating of green mould.

I tiptoed out of the room and stood under the light, scraping away the mould. For the instant I was almost afraid to open the book, for already I had guessed what it was. Then, with a heart which seemed scarcely to beat, I did open it, to find the soiled, yellow pages covered with my father's small, distinct handwriting. It was his diary.

There came a rustle behind me, and I turned and saw Delphine peering over my shoulder. She had taken off her serge coat, and her loose, pongee shirt was open at the throat. Her face was dewy with sleep, and there seemed to come from her the fragrance of a flower-soaked night breeze. Little doubt as to her true sex now, although her supple body was boyish in a way, its soft curves still draped in youth.

“What have you there?” she whispered.

I looked at her dazedly. “My father's diary,” I answered.

“Are you still dreaming?”

“Look here,” I whispered, and showed her the cover. Where I had rubbed away the mould was stamped in tarnished gold lettering:

“Diary”; and underneath, “Rev. John Whitney Ames.”

“But ... how did it come here?” whispered Delphine.

“It has never been anywhere else,” I answered; and added, under my breath, “this vessel is my father's brig, the Christian Faith.”

From the state-room opposite Cullom snored away like the surfeited swine he was. His door was shut, and, no doubt, locked, for I do not believe that he trusted his savage crew any more than was necessary. It was well for us perhaps that he was sodden with drink, for as I went on to tell Delphine of my dream and how I had knocked open the secret locker in my sleep our, voices may have been raised beyond the limit of prudence. The girl listened with her eyes fixed on mine.

“There is no doubt,” said I, “that Cullom is my father's murderer. Maginnis, a trader, intimated something of the sort in Suva. It is plain enough now. Cullom has some sort of hold on the Solomon Islanders. No doubt he was on the island where my father landed and incited the cannibals to cut off the brig. Then, after everybody had been slaughtered, he probably took her to some Chinese port and altered her throughout. He had a bow and stern overhang put on, remodelled her below, and changed her rig,” and I told Delphine of the queer feeling I had felt on coming aboard her.

“Let us look at the diary,” said I. “That may throw some light on the business.”

I turned to the last pages. Delphine dropped her hand on my shoulder, and I could feel her quick breath fanning against my cheek. We read in silence, commencing from the point where my father told of arriving at a small, outlying island of the group where he had put in for water and to talk to the chiefs. His hand was clear and legible, and we read swiftly and in silence, Delphine pressing my shoulder when she had finished the page.

“Dec. 11.—... a small, forty-ton yawl which has put in, leaking badly. She must have opened up in the squall of yesterday. The hands were at the pumps when she passed us, and at the wheel a bearded man, who looked suspiciously like the man Alexander Cullom, whom I tried so hard to bring to justice over a year ago. They beached her, and the white man has gone alone to the chief's house, which looks as though he were more or less at home here, as the island bears a very bad reputation. I trust that it may not be Cullom, as his presence might make my work infinitely more difficult, if not actually perilous...”

The parts of the diary which I give are only those which have a direct bearing on Cullom's part of the tragedy. Under the heading of the following day, we came upon a passage which read:

“... as I feared, the waterlogged pearling yawl which put in here yesterday belongs to none other than Cullom. I met him on the beach to-day, and he asked me, with a sort of impudent sarcasm, if I would let byegones be byegones and give him a passage to Bougainville, where we are bound from here. Personally, I would rather sail with a crew of lepers than with this wretch, but he told me that his life would not be safe with his yawl on the beach, that she was an old and mouldy vessel, and that he dared not put to sea in her. He wished to dismantle and leave her there, saying that her days were ended, and that she was not worth the effort to repair. I told him frankly that I had always considered him a scoundrel and a hindrance to civilisation, but that, in order to be true to my professed faith, I would consent to give him a passage, and to transfer such of his gear as we might conveniently carry. He appeared to be very grateful, and said that in return he would try to be of service to me in my work on the island. He said that he was on fairly good terms with the chief, which I fancy is the result of his (Cullom's) donations of rum.

“A little later Cullom went ashore, returning to say that he had talked to the chief, who appeared friendly disposed, and that he was coming out the following day to pay us a visit of State. All of this sounds very encouraging, but I by no means like the look in Cullom's eyes. I believe the man to be a coward and a bully, but he has the treachery of any unregenerate savage, or I am much mistaken....

“Friday, Dec. 13th. I have had a visit from the chief.... He seems well disposed, and has invited all hands to a feast to be given in our honour. Cullom, who seems to be acting as major domo or something of that sort, has advised that we go unarmed, thus showing our confidence in the good faith of our hosts. I have finally agreed to this, though realising that it 1s to take a certain risk. However, I have spent my active life in taking risks, and now that I am, except for my dear son, Douglas, practically alone in the world, do not feel that I am under any obligation to avoid physical danger. As to my crew, I have explained the situation, and with the exception of two men, the loyal fellows have chosen to go with me. Were I dealing with natives alone, I would feel quite at ease, but the man, Cullom, is 'the fly in the amber.' There is a quality to his expression which I do not like. He has become too effusively friendly, though perhaps I do him an injustice, and he may be moved by a real emotion of gratitude....”

Here the diary ended. I closed the book reverently and looked at Delphine. Her face was pale, her lips trembling, and her grey eyes full of tears. The water in my own had made the reading of the last paragraph difficult, but deeper down there was rising such a cold, consuming fury that I felt as though my body were turning to ice.

Cullom, this scum of the stagnant sea, to have plotted and carried out the massacre of such a man as my father and his brave, devoted Kanaka crew! I could see it all; my father brave, firm-lipped, reverent, knowing from his vast experience that he was doing a dangerous thing, but willing to take the risk for himself and his Christian band for the sake of the object lesson and the good-will and confidence which might ensue. Cullom, his crafty, vulpine face full of a false gratitude and friendship, his shifty eyes already on the Christian Faith, and his animal cunning at work on a plan for altering her in a way to defy recognition. He had several objects in view, had Cullom. Revenge upon the man who had so nearly got him a life sentence; the brig and all inside her; the establishing of a bond with the cannibals which might accrue to his profit in the matter of trade; and the furnishing of crew and divers to work the pearl fisheries. He ran no risk himself. The chief needed him.

I thought of the massacre ... and what must have followed it, and my soul turned sick. I laid the book on the table and buried my face in my hands. I was standing there, half leaning against the bulkhead trying to get the picture out of my mind, when I felt a light touch on my arm.

“He has stopped snoring,” whispered Delphine. “We had better go back into our room.

I nodded. It was risking the girl to stop there in the cabin, talking, so I motioned for her to go first, then followed, closing and locking the door again. Even then we could hear Cullom as he rolled over and began to snore again. It was not too hot below, for the state-rooms were ventilated from above.

“See here,” said I to Delphine. “This is the hiding place,” and I took her hand in mine and guided it to the opening. She reached inside and fumbled about.

“There are some other things in there,” said she.

“Then we had better examine them in the morning,” I answered.

Delphine sat down beside me on the edge of the bunk.

“You must not think of what you have just read any more than you can help, big brother,” said she, softly.

“Thank you, little sister,” I said, and raised her hand to my lips. “The thing to think of now is how I am to get you out of the hands of this murderer. Once that is done ...” I paused.

“Once that is done?” Delphine repeated, “what then, big brother?”

“I shall kill him,” I answered. “A few hours ago I thought that I was to be eaten by sharks to save me from taking the vengeance which we are told belongs only to God. Now I believe that I was spared that I might take it. I am not a good Christian like my father. Now climb up again and go to sleep, little sister. You must rest ...and I want to think.”

Delphine reached for my hand, gave it a warm little grip, then climbed obediently back into her berth. I rolled into my own and lay for a long time flat on my back, staring straight up, and my eyes burned. My heart was pounding, my body rigid, and as I lay there and listened to the reverberation of Cullom's snores, I began to understand what was meant by a blood lust. I was hungry for him, but I wanted him to know of his doom and the hands from which he was to receive it.

If it had not been for Delphine I believe that I would have called him out into the cabin, told him who I was and what I had found, then shot him between the eyes with the dead mate's pistol. But vengeance was not for me as long as the girl was in my care, and I groaned, almost aloud, as I thought of the days which I might have to wait, and how I must take food and drink with him, give ear to his coarse banter, and at night lie and listen to his drunken snores. Cullom was plainly a man of violent temper when he dared to indulge it, and I knew that the least lack of self-control on my part might result in a dénouement of which I could not predict the consequences for Delphine.

In that bitter hour I understood the savage irony of my fitness to carry on my father's work. Looking back, it seemed to me that the only one of my father's multitude of Christian virtues that I inherited was a strong sense of duty, of obligation. This one quality had accounted for my past suppressed life. As I reviewed this past I could see that I had been little better than an automaton. The only real emotion that I could remember to have felt was that of grief at the news of my father's destruction, and with it a sort of vague, ill-formed desire to avenge him. Fairfax had been right when he said that my dull view of life was the result of having always drawn my nourishment from the teat of a missionary society. But since I had talked with Fairfax great changes had been wrought. My fight with Sam Lung's coolie crew had been the awakening, and since then new impulses had been born every hour. I had seen naked passions at their work, free and unrestrained, and these had called to their hitherto imprisoned brethren locked in my own nature, and as I lay there, tense and still, these stormed for their liberty. Rush after rush of flaming impulse raged through me, and in that hour I could have inflicted on Cullom a torture compared to which Sam Lung's “water-snake” was mild. I could have burned his flesh with hot irons; lashed him to his own mast, and made of him a “Cossack candle.” All the pent up, suppressed passions of generations of Puritan psalm singers were struggling for freedom.

In time I grew calmer. From thinking of Cullom's sly and savage treachery, and pictures of my father's head the toy of cannibals, my thoughts passed suddenly to Delphine, and the fires were tempered to a warm, pervading glow. If I had never before felt hatred, neither had I ever felt the emotion of love, and I realised suddenly that both had come together. It was as though I had suddenly awakened from a long sleep. I was in love with Delphine, and my mind passed slowly from chaos to a sort of thrilling happiness. Then physical fatigue asserted itself, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

Cullom's voice and heavy tread above awakened me, and I lay for a moment or two listening to the scuffling bustle overhead. Then, as I turned, I heard a soft rustle, and looked up to see Delphine's charming face peering down at me, over the edge of the bunk.

“You are awake,” she said.

“Yes,” I answered, and reached up my hand. “Did you get some more sleep?”

“After a time. But I have been awake for an hour. Cullom is getting ready to go in to hunt Silverside.”

“I'll go up and give you a chance to make your toilet,” said I; “but first, let me see what else is in this locker.”

Striking the panel with the ball of my hand I opened it and reached inside. There was a little canvas sack containing forty-five sovereigns and some French and British silver, a pocket surgical case, and a large bottle of paregoric. That was all. I was turning these objects in my hands, when I heard Cullom coming down the companionway; so I dropped the objects back into their hiding-place and closed the panel, just as Cullom rapped sharply on the door.

“Hello,” I answered.

“I wish ye good mor'rnin',” said he, and added a coarse pleasantry which, while not too offensive, sent the blood into my face. “Maybe ye'll be comin' out directly for a bite o' breakfast.”

“I am coming right out,” I answered. “You might send your mess-boy with a bucket of fresh water for Miss Fairfax.”

“He has his or'rders to that effect. We are no so verra savage here, Misther Douglas, though unused to entertainin' heiresses,” and he shambled off.

I slipped on my shoes and coat and went on deck. The wind had blown itself out, though the sea still thundered over the reef, but the sky was bright and clear, the sun just rising from the sea, and the air sweet and warm. Clustered about the foremast was a knot of nearly naked Melanesians, half a dozen of whom were armed with rifles, while others carried native spears and knives. A whaleboat was lying alongside, and Cullom was leaning over the rail, giving orders to the men aboard her. He looked around and saw me.

“Here's a proper huntin' party,” said he, with his wolfish grin. “And how is the princess?”

“Very well,” I answered, shortly. “So you're after Silverside?”

“I am. How ever can we start divin' wi' Silverside snipin' at us fra' the bush? 'Tis no more than a cautionary measure, Misther Douglas.”

“You are not afraid to arm these fellows?” I asked.

“Not a bit of it. They are devoted to me, and why not? I would have ye understand, Misther Douglas, that I am a kind man when treated fair and spoken fair. Of coorse, like others, I hae' me enemies who would make me out a wastrel, but they are liars.”

“How are you going about your hunt?” I asked.

“As ye would for any other wolf or mangy, man-eatin' tiger. The trackers will go first and nose out the trail. A part o' the guns will follow the beaters, while others take their poseetions where the quarry is like to break cover. 'Tis a pity ye cannot take hand in the spoort, but someone must stop aboard and entertain the heiress—God bless her! I'd rayther it were me.” He gave me another of his evil grins. “Perhaps my turn will come, Misther Douglas. There's no accountin' for the freak o' woman's fancy. Now, I must be startin' off my gang and he turned to the boat again.

The last of the party was embarking when Delphine came on deck. Cullom took off his hat with a flourish.

“I hope ye rested well, me lady, and that the quarters were not too cramped,” said he. “As fresh as a primrose, is she not, Misther Douglas? Now, we will hae' a bit breakfast, and then I'll be leavin' ye. Of course, ye will remain aboard, as 'twould be dangerous ashore wi' my pack at large. I'm leavin' two good men to look after your needs. Should they try to come aft, ye have my permeesion to brain them both.”

He led the way below, and breakfast was served by the mess-boy. It consisted of a baked mutton fish, chipped beef, tea, ship's biscuit and marmalade, and a bowl of fruit. We ate heartily enough, when Cullom lighted his pipe and rose.

“A pleasant day to ye,” said he; “and now for Silverside.”

(To be concluded.)