Silverside/Part 3

by Henry C. Rowland

 

XIII.

DELPHINE and I spent the day under the awning, reading my father's diary and talking of many things. Once during the afternoon we heard the faint reports of three rifle shots, and later on two more, the last coming from the far side of the lagoon. The girl was evidently worried for Silverside, but when I thought of how he had left me on the sinking fragment of the yawl, I could not find it in me to take his danger very much to heart.

As our acquaintance ripened, Delphine became a source of growing wonder to me, and I could not reconcile her gifts with what I knew of her past life. She was well read in both French and English, and, as I discovered to my intense surprise, a devout Episcopalian. Her mother, she told me, had been of a French Protestant family, but was inclined to be agnostic.

“Where I went to school in Auckland,” said Delphine, simply, “they were such dear people, that I wanted to be as much like them as I could. The vicar was a sweet old man, with a lace like the pictures of St. Paul. He had been a missionary, too, like your father, but was in Borneo, where he Was a great friend of Rajah Brooke. His wife was a good deal younger, but like a mother to all the girls. We adored her. She was very pretty, and used to come in and frolic with us when We were supposed to be in bed. But she could be very strict when it was necessary. The vicar was more of a scientist than a clergyman really, and he used to take us on excursions about New Zealand and explain the wonderful natural phenomena, and tell us stories of the Creation. In New Zealand one can almost see how the world was made.”

“Did the people where you went to school know who you really were?” I asked.

“Yes. Mother told them the truth. But only the vicar and his wife knew. Everybody else thought that I was the sister of Gaston Berdou.”

Delphine asked me a good many questions about myself, and I told her how I had been brought up as the ward of the society, ultimately to take up my father's work. I told her also of the secret resolution which I had long since formed, one day to avenge his murder. Her grey eyes rested on me with a thoughtful intensity surprising in so young a girl, for she was barely seventeen.

“May I say something ... big brother?” she asked, presently, with a shyness quite different from her usual positive manner.

“Of course, little sister,” I answered.

“You must not do what you have in mind. There is no doubt that Cullom brought about your father's death, and if you can ever bring him to justice you must do so. But you know in your heart that your father would be the very last person to wish you to take the law into your own hands. It would be against all of his teachings, and it would be wrong to his memory.”

I made no answer to this, but presently said:

“You preach forgiveness, little sister, but you don't seem very willing to practice it.”

Delphine's eyes opened wider.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Your own father's dying wish was that your mother and you should profit by his fortune, and you refuse to let him make even that reparation for the way he treated you,” I answered.

Delphine's straight brows came lower, and her eyes grew hard.

“I don't remember Daniel Fairfax,” she answered, “but from what mother has told me I don't think that he deserves, living or dead, the satisfaction of the least atonement. We don't need Daniel Fairfax's money, and we don't want it. We are rich now. We have taken thousands of dollars' worth of pearls from this lagoon, and mother thinks that there is a fortune in that heap over there on the beach. So does Keowa Harry.”

“I wouldn't bank too much on the shell heap, with Cullom here,” I answered. “Silverside can't keep them away from it single-handed.

Delphine's face grew troubled. “I am very worried about Silverside,” she answered. “Oh, I wish that we could get ashore and join him. And I wonder what has happened to my women?”

“The chances are,” said I, “that Silverside warned them, and they have taken to the bush.” I did not add that in this case Cullom's black crew would be almost certain to find them, as the cannibals are all wonderful trackers. Delphine no doubt knew this.

About dark, Cullom came aboard in a savage humour. Silverside, it appears, had crossed and doubled like a sly old fox, and from a high ledge on the side of the crater he had picked off another man. I gathered that the trackers were beginning to get a superstitious fear of this mysterious prowler who baffled their skill, and shot with such a deadly sureness. Certainly, Cullom himself was frightened, and showed it in face, and speech, and manner. He was surly and uncommunicative at first, but after he had drunk a half bottle of whiskey his attitude grew more ominous. Several times I caught his eyes fastened on me in a curious, stealthy glare, like a man who is turning some overt act in his mind, and when he looked at Delphine there was something purely devilish in the expression of the dark. congested face. One did not need to be a clairvoyant to see that he was tiring of the strained relations, and meditating the pros and cons of some fresh crime, and it was not hard to guess what that was. Only the presence of Silverside at large on the island restrained him, I think, for his savage temper was gaining force as his patience diminished.

That night I slept like a cat with the dead mate's pistol in my hand, but we were not disturbed, and when we awoke at daybreak I heard Cullom and his crew leaving the schooner. But a little later we discovered that the plan of operations for this day was different. Through a glass which I found below I saw a swarm of black figures squatting about the shell heap, while Cullom himself was walking back and forth with a rifle on his shoulder. He had apparently decided to abandon the stalk of Silverside for the present and cut out the rotting bivalves.

“He has probably got pickets back in the bush,” I said to Delphine. “He's not quite sure when Gaston Berdou may come in, and wants to make sure of the pearls that are rotting out. There is nothing that Silverside can do. Cullom means to starve him out.”

“I wish that we could manage to get ashore and join Silverside,” she answered.

We looked at each other, and I saw that the same thought was in her mind as in my own. The night before she had been silent and pale under Cullom's sidelong glares, and I knew that for all her brave front she was in a state of deadly fear.

“I can't think of how to manage it,” I answered. “I could get away with the two men aboard, if it came to the scratch, but at the first sign of a row Cullom and his gang would come boiling out here and ... and..." I paused.

“And murder you and leave me in his power,” said Delphine, calmly. “I realise that.”

We remained silent for awhile. We were sitting 'way aft, under the awning, Delphine on the hatch of the lazarette and I on the rail. Forward, the two men were squatting on deck working at a split sail. They were both big fellows for Melanesians, and older than others of the crew, one being quite grizzled, with lacking teeth and theumy eyes. Both were of savage type, their faces bestial, and with features artificially distorted, the lobes of the ears dragged down to the angle of the jaw.

I got up from where I was sitting, and walked forward to look at them more closely. Both glanced up in a quick, furtive way. Then the older man grinned and made a cup of his band, lifting it to his mouth with a significant glance at the companionway.

I shook my head, eyed them for a moment, then walked aft again. The tide was running out of the lagoon, and we were lying stern on to the entrance in water as still as new ice. As I glanced toward the opposite side I noticed a huge mass of seaweed drifting slowly out with the current. It was such a tangle of algæ as might be torn from the rocks in a gale, with nothing about it either to catch or hold the eye, but was surrounded by a slight ripple as though some big fish was feeding on the crustacea and small bait which take refuge in these bunches of weed.

As I walked aft to rejoin Delphine I saw that she was watching the same object, not idly, but with brows knit and a slightly puzzled expression.

“I've been looking at that driftweed,” said she. “It's rather curious.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“When I first noticed it, it was almost in a line with the main rigging, and farther in shore. Now it is nearer, and scarcely any farther toward the entrance. Why should it be drifting toward us when the tide is running Straight out?”

“The fish are at work on it,” I answered. “They are probably tugging it about, trying to get at the small fry inside.”

She nodded, then turned to stare out to sea. I picked up the glasses and turned them on the gang at work by the shell heap. It was then about ten o'clock, and the sun was getting hot. Cullom had seated himself under the shade of a palm, getting up occasionally to look over the shoulder of some worker. The natives were cutting out the rotten bivalves, and I did not envy them their malodorous task.

From watching Cullom and his gang I turned my glasses on different parts of the shore. Behind the bungalow the ground rose steeply in a tangled jungle, which farther back gave place to brown, naked rock, rising at first in ledges, and then mounting in masses of broken stone and lava to the rim of the crater. At the head of the lagoon was a valley, thickly wooded, and the land rising gradually as it receded. The opposite side was more even, and looked as if it might be swampy, with mangroves growing to the water's edge. Seaward was the sandspit on one side, and on the other a sweeping curve of broad, creamy beach.

“How large is the island?” I asked Delphine.

“About twenty miles long and about ten wide, I believe. The shore is very irregular, and there are reefs all about. Vessels always give it a wide berth.”

“'Have you ever been back, inside?”

“No. Keowa Harry goes sometimes with the boys to catch fish in a salt lake, over there...” She pointed to the low part opposite the bungalow. “The lake is about as big as this lagoon, and full of a small, white fish which is very good to eat.” She stopped, abruptly. “Look at that seaweed now. It is coming closer all the and scarcely drifting out at all.”

I glanced at the bunch of algæ, or whatever it may have been, and was surprised to see that, as if caught in some eddy, it was working across the current and drifting toward the stern of the schooner. When I had first noticed it, the distance might have been four hundred yards, and now, in a very few minutes, here it was within less than fifty.

“Something is certainly towing it,” said I, and levelled the glass. “There is a white thing in the middle ... and a sort of furrow in the water behind.”

We watched, deeply mystified, for if the cluster had been drifting before, it was now evidently propelled by some active force. More than that, its course was describing a curve, and, as it drew still closer, one could see that it was working up steadily under the stern against the set of the tide. Then, as I noticed this, my heart gave a sudden bound. I raised the glass, focussed carefully, and looked into the pale, kelp-encircled face of Silverside.

“What is it?” asked Delphine, in a low voice, as I turned to her and she saw my face.

“Silverside,” I answered.

“In that bunch of weed?”

“Yes. Don't look yet. The men forward might come aft to see what we were watching.”

I walked to the rail and hung over it as if idly. The mass of weed was moving faster now, and presently I could see through the clear water the gleam of a white body. The two natives up forward were busy on their sail and did not look aft. Nearer and nearer came the weed. It passed directly under me and disappeared beneath the overhang of the stern.

“All clear,” said I, in a low voice. “Two natives forward at work on a sail. What do you want?'

“Drop a fishing line over the side,” came the muffled answer. “How is the girl?”

“All right,” I answered, and turned away from the rail. Delphine was watching me with a white face. I walked past her and slipped down into the lazarette, where I found a fishing line with lead and hooks. Then I went back to the rail and motioned to Delphine. She came and leaned over the rail beside me. I let down the line and made it fast. It tautened, and the next moment we saw Silverside looking up at us, gripping the line in one bony hand. His dark eyes burned like hot coals in his colourless face.

“What is it?” I asked, in a low voice.

“You must come with me,” whispered Silverside.

“How can we? There are two men forward.”

“Kill them. You can do it quietly. Two blows with an iron pin.”

I stared down at him in angry contempt. “And what if I did?” I asked. “Delphine can't swim with sharks like you.”

“I will give her the fetich to hang about her neck,” whispered Silverside, “and we will keep close to her. She is in more danger from Cullom than from the sharks, and so are you. I know the man.”

I shook my head.

“She's safer here,” I answered, “Besides, I'm not going to murder two unsuspecting men, white or black.”

The white face below glared up at me with a sort of savage desperation.

“Don't be a fool,” growled Silverside. “Do as I tell you. Cullom has almost finished cutting out, and may put to sea to-morrow. If he does it will mean the sharks for you ... and something worse for Delphine. I tell you I know the man.”

I looked at Delphine and her eyes met mine inscrutably. Then I glanced forward. One of the blacks was squat- ting with his back against the windlass. The sail had dropped from his hands, and his head was nodding. The other still sewed on, but in a sleepy, listless way.

Silverside twitched impatiently at the line, and I leaned over the rail again. He looked up at me scowling.

“What are two cannibals?” he almost snarled. “You've got to do it, Dr. Ames.” He held out one arm to Delphine. “Tell him to do it ... for your sake,” he entreated.

Delphine drew back, white and trembling

“I can't ...” she whispered, breathing hard.

“I gripped Delphine's wrist, and almost dragged her to the place”

Silverside gave a sort of despairing sigh. My heart was going like a triphammer, and I stole another look forward. The drowsy blacks were side by side, and I thought how easy it would be to slip an iron belaying pin under my coat, walk quietly forward, and dispose of both in two quick blows. After all, what did their lives weigh in the balance with the safety of Delphine? More than that, was I not morally bound to protect her even at the cost of my own conscience? My breath came quicker, and I looked down at Silverside again.

“What good would it do?” I whispered. “What could we do ashore?”

He made a gesture of fierce impatience.

“Leave that to me,” he murmured, thickly. “You do your part and I will do mine. For God's sake do as I ask.”

He raised both arms imploringly. The drab face, with its cavernous eyes and the encircling mass of streaming algae, suggested some Triton of the deep; a weird, mysterious, inhuman creature on whose lips the “For God's sake' sounded blasphemous. I stared at him, repulsed, yet fascinated. “For God's sake,” whispered Silverside, entreating me, a white man and a missionary, to crush the skulls of two unsuspecting savages.

It would be an easy thing to do. Cullom and his party were on the beach nearly a mile away, too far to see the act which I was sure could be accomplished without a struggle or a cry. I looked again at Delphine, and began to feel a murderous temptation.

“What could we do ashore?” I asked of Silverside.

“I know of a safe hiding place,” he answered, rapidly. “When this vessel came in I recognised her and took no chances. Cullom is a wolf, and Therese's worst enemy. The women knew of a hiding place, so we went there, taking food and the three rifles. I signalled to you from the beach, but you would not look. Oh, for the sake of all you hold dear, do as I ask. What are two old natives to a man of your strength?”

His voice rose dangerously in pitch, and I motioned him to be quiet. The men forward were both drowsing now, but I was afraid that their quick ears might catch the different note. The temptation within was growing stronger, and with it was a certain savage ruthlessness. I glanced instinctively at the fife-rail with its row of iron pins on which the halliards were loosely coiled. Then I looked again at Delphine.

“Wait,” I said, and pushed myself away from the rail, and as I did so I was conscious of Delphine's shuddering gasp.

XVI.

But the plan which I had formed in that instant was not the murderous one urged by Silverside. That one, I will admit, I was for the moment terribly tempted to carry out. It was safer than my own, and would take less time, but even for the sake of Delphine, and while I knew that the two blacks forward had no doubt taken their part in my father's massacre, some inner conscience told me that such a thing should never be done Perhaps my own plan showed a certain softness of fibre or a selfish regard for the welfare of my own soul such as a man made of sterner stuff might have scorned; but it was so that I was made, and all of my early teaching made the other impossible.

Even then it is possible that if the other expedient had not suggested itself I might have nerved myself to carry out Silverside's directions, but as I had glanced forward at the two drowsing men their sleepy attitudes suggested the expedient of a drug ... and suddenly I thought of the big bottle of paregoric in the secret locker. Paregoric ... the camphorated tincture of opium, two hypnotic doses in two glasses of whiskey.

I slipped below, quickly forced the locker where I had seen Cullom stow his spirits, poured two glasses partly full, then going into the state-room where we had slept I took out the bottle of paregoric and filled both glasses to the brim, then carried them forward. The two natives roused themselves quickly, and seeing the glasses their eyes shone.

“Rum,” I said, and took a swallow myself. They grinned with delight, reached out their skinny arms, for both were past middle age. I handed each his dose, then laid my finger on my lips, looked toward the beach and shook my head.

They grinned and nodded, then drank the villainous mixture, smacking their lips even though it brought the tears to their eyes. The paregoric tempered the rawness of the spirits, and they seemed to like the taste, and when they had finished theit glasses asked, cajolingly, for more. But I shook my head and walked away aft. Delphine gave me a look of sick terror as I came up. Her face was like chalk, and she clung to the rail as if for support.

“You're not going to ... to do it ...” she whispered.

“No,” I answered, “assassination is not in my schedule. I've given them a drug. They will be asleep in a few minutes.” I leaned over the rail, and Silverside glared balefully up at me. I told him what I had done, and he showed his yellow teeth in a sneering smile.

“I didn't think you had the bowels for it,” said he. “As you wish. That leaves us two more to deal with later.”

I turned away angrily from the rail. Delphine laid her hand on my sleeve.

“If you had done that, big brother,” she said, “I don't believe that I could ever have talked to you again.”

“Thank you, little sister,” I answered.

We leaned silently against the rail. Several interminable minutes passed: ten or fifteen perhaps. One of the men forward had laid down his work and Was gaping straight in front of him, a vacant leer on his hideous face. The other was working fitfully with an Occasional nod. Suddenly Silverside spoke. 

“Get some food if you can,” he muttered. “We will need it.” I nodded, took another look forwards, then went to the companionway. Food had been left on the table below: a fowl looted from the poultry of the bungalow, some boiled potatoes and a tin of salmon. I stuffed what I could into my pockeis. Then, unloading the pistol which I had found in the dead mate's locker, I was about to put the cartridges in a pickle-jar when it occurred to me to try the mechanism. To my disgust, I found the arm useless, the hammer spring being broken, so I flung it back into the locker again. My father's diary I put back into the secret hiding place, fearing that the water might melt the pages. Cullom could carry the damning evidence of his crime about with him until such time as by the grace of God I might be able to confront him with it.

When I went on deck the natives forward seemed to be asleep. I was not surprised at the quick effect of the drug, especially as the day was hot and still, and the doses they had taken were heavy ones. I leaned over the rail.

“They're both asleep,” I said to Silverside.

“Give them another five minutes,” he answered. “What about the gang ashore?”

“Still at work,” I answered.

The minutes dragged past like hours. Delphine, plucky darling! set about to prepare for the swim to the mangroves, about half a mile away. She slipped off her shoes, which I tied with my own to my belt, then took off her coat and laid it on the deck.

“I can't swim in that, big brother,” she said.

“Give it to me, little sister,” I answered. “Fasten it to the back of my belt. You'll need it later.”

“No,” she answered, “you are burdened enough already. I'll give it to Silverside. I've heard mother say that land and water are the same to him.” And she leaned over the rail, first throwing a glance forward, and dropped the light serge coat to the gaunt Triton dangling from the fish line, then turned to me with a rather frightened smile. Something caught my breath, and my eyes grew moist as they fell on the slender but sweetly-rounded figure and the pale, brave face. Her lips were trembling a little and her voice unsteady, but the grey eyes were cool and steadfast as they rested on me thoughtfully.

As our glances met a tinge of colour came into her face. She reached out her hand to me impulsively, and when I took it in mine said shyly:

“I am not afraid when I am with you.”

I stopped and brushed the back of her hand with my lips.

“There's not much that I can do, little sister,' I answered.

“It's not so much what you have done as what you would not do,” she answered. “If you had let Silverside persuade you to do ... that” ... (her voice lowered) “you would not have been the sort of big brother that I could love.” She looked forward. “Can't we go now?” she asked; “this waiting is horrible.”

Scarcely had she spoken when one of the blacks who had been sleeping with his back against the windlass pitched forward, his head striking the deck a thump which was audible from the length of the deck. The concussion seemed to rouse rather than stun him, for he scrambled up to his feet and stared about, his head lolling on his shoulders, eyeballs rolling, and a stupid grin on his mouth which showed the red-stained fangs.

For a moment he stood there, his body bent, swaying on his bowed legs, and gripping at the drum of the windlass to keep from falling. No doubt the spirits and the opiate were fighting it out inside him, for the first effect of the dose he had got might have been expected to excite rather than soothe. A sinister old devil he looked as he tottered there, leering about, his reddened eyes rolling and showing their whites, the lobes of his distended ears flapping down to the angles of his jaw, grinning gums partly toothless, and his gaunt, naked body showing an anatomy of bones and banded, shrunken muscle; for he was an old man, big-framed for his race, but showing already the emaciation of advancing age.

Then, as he goggled stupidly about, his eyes fellon me. The leering horror of that semi-toothless grin clings yet in my mind. He ducked his grizzled head, mowing like a chimpanzee, which resembles more closely an imbecile child than one of God's lesser animals. Loosing his hold on the windlass, he came lurching aft, staggering, gripping at whatever offered a hold, his huge knee-joints buckling under him, and the flat feet slapping against the sun-blistered deck. Still grinning and pointing to his mouth, he reached the mainmast, and there the drug took him, for he stumbled and fell, rolled on to his back, and straightway began to snore, his head tilted back over a coil of halliards, and the pitiless sun beating against his black, glistening face.

I looked at Delphine. “We can go now,” I said.

We went to the rail and looked down. Silverside's colourless, brine-sodden face, which might have been that of a drowned man but for the two burning, cavernous eyes, looked up at us.

“There's nothing more to fear about these two aboard,” said I, “but I wish I felt as sure about the sharks.”

“We needn't be afraid of the sharks,” Delphine answered. “Keowa Harry says that there are none in the lagoon an hour after the flood. They go out to the reef with the ebb, and don't come in again until the tide turns. We always do our diving after the first of the ebb, and the sharks have never bothered us.”

This was cheering news, but before taking to the water I made Silverside pass up his amulet, which I hung around Delphine's neck. Then I picked up the end of the mainsheet, which was coiled from the end of the gallows-frame, flung it over the side, and took a turn on the bitts.

“Slide down, little sister,” I said

Delphine let herself over the rail, and slipped down into the water. I fol lowed her, and we pushed ourselves clear of the schooner's side.

“Swim straight in for the mangroves,” said Silverside. “Make for that dark spot; it's the opening of a little creek which we must follow to reach solid ground.”

We struck out together through the clear, warm water. Delphine swam like a strong, athletic boy. I must be remembered that she was island born, and from childhood had romped along the beach with Kanaka playmates. Her thin pongee shirt and light linen trousers offered no impediment to her strong young limbs, and, in fact, it kept me busy to hold my own, for, although enduring enough, I was never a fast swimmer.

When we had gone about a hundred yards I looked back over my shoulder to see that we were keeping the schooner between us and the beach where Cullom was at work, and then, for the first time, I discovered that Silverside was not following us. For a second the awful thought that a shark had taken him flashed across my mind. Delphine glanced at me, and, seeing that I was looking back, turned in the water.

“Where is Silverside?” she panted.

She had scarcely spoken when he appeared, crouching over the bulwarks of the schooner. The sun flashed on something in his hand as he made a couple of passes, as though brushing the side of his dripping pyjamas, and even at that distance we could see the crimson stain. As we watched him he straightened up, locked back over his shoulder, then took a clean dive into the still lagoon.

Delphine's eyes told me that she had understood. They were wide with horror, yet undismayed.

“A thorough man, Silverside,” I said, and began to swim forward. Delphine did not answer, but her long, vigorous strokes carried her through the water. It was fortunate that she swam so well, for the tide was drifting us down, and this added to the distance we had to go. Side by side we held on strongly, not speaking nor looking back, heading for the mouth of the creek, and before long the mangroves, with their twisted boles and jutting ratoons, were on either side of us. The mouth of the creek was perhaps fifty yards across, but it narrowed like a funnel, and a few strokes farther on turned off to the right at an angle of forty-five degrees. As we reached this bend my feet struck bottom, and I stood up on a sandy floor in water waist deep. Delphine rose beside me, and we both turned and looked back.

There was not a sign of Silverside, The still water of the lagoon lay flat and unruffled by the faintest ripple, except for the mouth of the creek where we had just passed. It was like a great lake of quicksilver, with the sun blazing from its gleaming surface, and aboard the schooner all was silent as the death which Silverside had left in his murderous wake. That part of the beach where Cullom was at work was directly behind the vessel.

“Where can he be?” asked Delphine almost in a whisper.

“The chances are,” said I, “that when he swam off to us in that bunch of weed he took to the water higher up. No doubt he left his rifle there, and has gone back to get it. Swimming in the lagoon would be easier than wading through this tangle ... but he ought to have told us. He hadn't counted on the work he saw fit to do after we left.”

Delphine shuddered. “He is a terrible man,” she said.

“He acts according to his lights,” I answered. “' As he said, there were two more to deal with, and there is no doubt that they were awful brutes. Silverside is a man of one idea, and that is to serve your mother. More than that, he is jealous as a fiend. He left me to the sharks back there on the wrecked yawl rather than have me interfere with his direction of her interests. There is a good deal to admire in Silverside, but I can't say that I love him.”

Delphine looked at me thoughtfully and nodded. I glanced at the wild, fantastic tangle which surrounded us, then at the girl, and as my eyes rested on her a flame went through me. Her damp curls clustered about her face, flushed from the exertion of swimming in the tepid water of the lagoon. The brine glistened on her long, dark lashes, her eyes shone like aqua-marines. Standing there against the dark green background of the swamp, with the still water encircling her round, supple waist, and the wet blouse clinging to her superbly moulded figure, she was like some ravishing sea-nymph. Delphine might have been nude to the waist for all that the silken blouse concealed of her exquisite body, which combined in its subtle curves the suggestion of elastic strength, the rush of the free air, and the rich promises of womanly maturity.

Perhaps the sweetest feature of all was the utter absence of self-consciousness as she stood there, breathing deeply, and digging her bare, rosy feet into the golden sand which carpeted the floor of the creek under the clear water. Thrill after thrill swept through me as I watched her, and suddenly she looked up, and, seeing the expression of my face, gazed at me questioningly.

“Delphine,” I cried breathlessly, “did anybody ever tell you how lovely you are?”

The colour deepened under her eyes.

“No,” she answered, looking down. “Do you think that I am pretty?”

“You are more than that,” I said, almost wildly; “you are the most beautiful creature I ever saw ... and the dearest and the bravest.”

She threw me a shy, sidelong glance.

“Do you really think so?” she murmured. “I'm glad if I please you, big brother ... because I have never seen a man whom I like so much as you.”

A sort of madness came over me, and I reached for her hand. She turned toward me, looking at me with misty eyes and parted lips.

“Delphine ...” I cried, “How can you expect me to be a big brother when you look at me like that?”...

She smiled a little, and her breath came faster. I drew her toward me, staring hungrily at her flushed face. Another man who had felt as I did might have known how to express himself—what to say in words edged about with poetry or romance, leading her gently to appreciate the fires that had been lighted in his heart and soul, careful not to shock her absolute innocence or to picture himself to her as a tongue-tied fool who could only stare devouringly like some caveman glaring from ambush at the mate he purposed to drag off to his lair. But if words failed me, perhaps the look in my eyes may have told of the infinite tenderness which tempered the rush of passion, for Delphine's red lips parted in a smile, and she raised her face to mine.

“I am not afraid of losing my big brother,” she said; “and if I please you so much you may kiss me if you like ... Douglas....”

I caught her in my arms, my heart fairly bursting at the contact of the swaying, pliant body. I crushed my lips to hers, holding her so close that she gasped for breath. And then, as I was murmuring I don't know what words of tenderness there came from close at hand the grind of oars and the swash of water. Looking through the twisted growth, I caught a glimpse of the whaleboat, not fifty yards distant, and forging straight for the entrance of the creek.

“Cullom ...” I said hopelessly, and looked around for some way of escape. The only one that offered lay straight up the creek to where the jungle closed in about two hundred yards farther on. There was no time for this, as the water was waist-deep, and made progress slow and difficult. On either side the mangroves grew densely, yet were not so thick but that one could see some distance into them. To the right a heavy growth of the adventitious branches peculiar to these trees offered a thin screen, and I gripped Delphine's wrist and almost dragged her to the place; for it had flashed across my mind that the only possible hope of escape was for me to adopt the tactics of the mother bird when it trails an enemy away from the nest. There was just the chance that she might escape observation if I could lure the boat's crew away from the spot where she was hiding.

“I hoisted myself across the bobstay, then stood up, gripping the martingale guy, climbed softly upon it.”

“Crouch down behind those leaves, I whispered, “and wait for Silverside. Don't move; don't make a ripple.'

I let go her wrist, then plunged through the water into the bushes on the other side of the creek, turning off at right angles from its course. Splashing and squattering like a winged goose, I scrambled deeper into the jungle, clawing at scaly trunks, grabbing at the pendant branches, floundering noisily, yet making good progress. Through the tangle I saw the boat foaming into the entrance, and at the same time I was seen myself, for there rose a clamour of yells, a sharp report, and a bullet sang over my head. An instant later I had forced my way into a denser mass of foliage, when I glided quietly off to the left. Cullom was roaring like a bull, and I heard the sound of bodies splashing off into the water, and guessed that he had loosed his blacks on my trail. The water deepened, and the growth became a little more sparse; so I stopped wading, and passed myself as swiftly and silently as I could through the swamp by gripping at the mangrove boles. The hunt seemed to be bearing off to the right; so I turned again, and presently the water of the lagoon began to glimmer through the foliage, and I came out on the edge of the growth, which was thicker at this point, the leaves growing to the water's edge. I passed myself into the densest part and waited, for all the world like a wounded duck. My course had been almost a half-circle, and it seemed to me that the boat could not be more than two hundred yards distant from where I hid. Then it struck me that Cullom's sharp-eyed head-hunters might be able to track me from the wet marks of my hands where I had gripped the mangrove trunks, so I slipped out into the open water and swam quietly along the fringe of growth, dipping into it again a hundred and fifty yards beyond. As I lay there panting I could hear Cullom's roarings and occasional cries from the blacks.

My heart was going like a trip hammer, less from the exertion than from the hope that the ruse might have succeeded and that Delphine might not be discovered. Her very closeness to the boat was a safeguard, unless one of the blacks took up the back-track. And this must have been precisely what happened, for suddenly a wild, despairing scream rang out, followed by an exultant roar from Cullom. Another scream followed it, and my blood seemed to freeze. There was the sound of heavy splashing, as though of a struggle, then the clatter of oars. I could hear Cullom's savage, triumphant laugh, and a moment later his harsh voice lifted like that of a hunter calling to his hounds.

XV.

How long I wallowed there, cowering in the mangroves, I have no idea. I was numb with misery, and a sort of deathly sickness, worse than nausea. I forgot entirely that the blacks were still looking for me, or that the day was advancing, and I was on the edge of a morass with the shark-infested lagoon on one side and a jungle where one could neither walk nor swim on the other, with a pack of savage head-hunters puzzling out my trail.

Cullom had Delphine. That was the beginning, the middle and the end of my whole dumb thought, and this one idea turned slowly around and around and around, like a chip in an eddy. Cullom had Delphine ... and before long he would take her back aboard the schooner, and she would be helpless in the hands of a man to whom one more evil act mattered about as much as the slapping of a mosquito.

The blacks, no doubt, were swarming over the swamp like otter hounds. For some time I scarcely gave them a thought, though I realised in a vague way that my destruction was necessary to Cullom's safety. The hand of the law reaches in a rather groping way even to the islands which skirt Melanesia, and I would be a dangerous man to leave alive. And yet, not so very dangerous either, for Cullom was shrewd enough to have gauged me for what I was: a highly-conscientious youth of twenty-four who under oath would have felt bound to admit certain truth in Cullom's claims—to wit, that he and his crew had been attacked on landing on the island and had merely taken the best means for their defence. As for Delphine, Cullom could always swear that he had acted with a view to her safety.

But as I lay there in the mangroves I can scarcely be said to have thought at all. I was simply a hopeless, water-soaked, sodden mass of misery. Cullom had Delphine; that one idea was crushing in its hideous reality. Cullom had Delphine ... and there was nothing for me to do but to skulk there like a water-rat and watch him carry her away. The bitter conviction possessed me that from the very start I had been everybody's fool. I was a fool to have tried to rescue Silverside from the coolies; a fool to have sat tamely while he swam off and left me on the sinking launch; a fool not to have braved Cullom and insisted that Delphine and I bé left undisturbed in the bungalow, for I now believed that if I had faced him boldly he would not have dared take us aboard the schooner by force. But I had been the greatest fool of all when I let that slinking wolf, Silverside, persuade me to leave the schooner with Delphine, and having been so persuaded, I was a fool not to have followed his advice, smashed in the heads of the blacks, and so saved half an hour's precious time.

As I grovelled there the whaleboat shot out so close to me that I could hear the grunts of the blacks as they hove at the oars. Delphine was huddled in the stern, and at the sight of her pitiful, cowering figure my heart seemed to freeze and my bones turned to ice. A resolution came to me in that moment, and [ thought of Silverside. He could not be far from the place, and I wondered why he had not been heard from, for I had no doubt but that he had left us to swim to the spot where he had left his rifle. I needed Silverside for my new plan, and I was sure that even at that moment he must be lurking very near in the mangroves.

This supposition proved to be correct, for as I was about to move there came the crack of a rifle, and in the whaleboat the bow oar suddenly sprang up, flung out his hands and fell across the gunnel. I saw Cullom fling himself down in the bottom of the boat close to Delphine. The rest of the crew pulled furiously. Again the rifle cracked, and there came a yell from the boat, which slightly shifted its course so that it was bow and stern from Silverside's position. Cullom apparently knew that he would not fire When there was the risk of hitting Delphine.

I slipped into the water, and, regardless of the danger of being seen, started to swim up along the edge of the swamp in the direction from which the firing had come. Reaching the entrance to the creek I swam into it, for beyond was a sort of projection of the mangroves, and I thought to cut across it. As I rounded the first bend I saw Silverside. He was wading rapidly toward me, coming apparently from the head of the creek, his rifle and a belt of cartridges held above his head in one hand, and his coat buttoned about his neck and hanging behind his shoulders.

At sight of me he stopped short, stared for an instant, then came on rapidly, chest deep in the water, his white skin gleaming like wet marble; and the glistening scar on his side. Sam Lung's handiwork was apparent, too, in three livid stripes which encircled his gaunt, muscular torso. Within fifty feet of me he paused.

“I thought you were killed,” said he.

“Small blame to you I wasn't,” I answered, bitterly. “Why didn't you fire on the boat as she came in? That might have given me a chance to hide Delphine.”

“I hadn't time,” he answered. “You needn't blame me, Dr. Ames. If you hadn't been so chicken-hearted about those two on the schooner we would have got away, all three. Before I could get to where I had left my rifle the boat was behind the mangroves.”

I did not answer. What he said was true enough. If it had not been for my compunctions we would have saved half an hour's time. I stood there silent. Silverside waded up to me.

“What happened to you?” he asked. “Did you run away and leave the child ... or what?”

I was too wretched to resent the question. Even the sneer on his pallid face left me unmoved. I told him how the thing had come about.

“What can we do now?” I asked, when I had finished.

Silverside gave a sardonic laugh. “Not much, Dr. Ames,” he answered. “Your missionary conscience has spoiled it all. I can take you to a safe place and give you a rifle, and we may be able to prevent Cullom from landing. But as for the child ...” he shrugged. “Cullom will have his way with her.”

“He will not dare ...” I cried.

“He will dare ... when he is drunk,” answered Silverside, immovably. “That will be to-night.”

“D—— you!' I cried, furiously, “'if you dare say that I'll strangle you,” and I lurched towards him. Silverside fell back a step.

“Don't be a fool,” said he, curtly. “It was all your own fault.”

“It was yours, you devil,” I snarled. “Why did you fire on Cullom's men to begin with? What are a few pearls compared to the safety of Delphine? You began it all, curse you!”

He stared at me, half-defiant, half-afraid. For the moment I wanted to kill him, and no doubt he felt his danger, for he swashed back still farther, the water swirling about his chest.

“You are talking like a child, doctor,” said he. “Just stop for a moment and think. I have cut down Cullom's force by nearly half. What have you done?”

There was no answer to that, nor did I have the heart to try to make one. I stood silent and wretched, scarcely hearing Silverside, when presently he said:

“Let us see what they are up to, Dr. Ames. Unless I am mistaken, Cullom will not be long in getting to sea.”

“What do you mean?” I cried, a new and awful fear striking into me like a knife.

“'e has been working fast at the shell-heap,” said Silverside. “Gaston Berdou ... Daniel Fairfax's widow may come in here any day. Her crew would eat up these mangy cannibals of Cullom's ... as many as are left ... without asking for salt. Dog brothers, the whole brood. Cullom is afraid. He is only a mangy cur, himself, and the only thing that keeps him here is his avarice. But now that he has the child, he knows that he can make terms. When it comes to that, the beds are as much his as theirs. This island belongs really to the British crown ... and Von Bulow....”

He waded past me, still holding his rifle above his head. I followed him. We passed the bend and came in sight ot the schooner, a little over half a mile away. The boat was rounding up under her stern

Silverside touched me on the arm.

“Give me some food, Dr. Ames,” said he, in a curiously plaintive voice. “I have not eaten for a good many hours.”

I emptied my pockets of the food and handed it to him. He broke it open and began to eat wolfishly, tearing at the water-soaked fowl like a famished dog. With Sam Lung's knife, which hung by a cord from his neck, he ripped open the tin of salmon, and had eaten almost the whole of it before I turned to look at him.

But I did not look long, for the schooner claimed all of my thought. The boat had rounded up on her other side, and I could not see what was going on. But the boat presently reappeared, heading for the farther beach, and I saw Cullom's white-clad figure in the stern. I was following their course, when Silverside touched my elbow.

“Look, Dr. Ames,” said he. “They are heaving in chain.”

The man was right. Two dark figures were swaying up and down at the windlass, and we heard the clatter of the chain cable as it came slowly in through the hawsepipe.

“Cullom means to go out to-night,” said Silverside in my ear. “He will profit by the daylight that is left to load the rest of the oysters, then work out after dark. He is frightened.”

I gave a groan. Silverside offered me what was left of the chicken.

“Eat some food, Dr. Ames,” he said, in that hollow, toneless voice which I had come to hate. “You will need all of your strength to get out of this place.” He pointed behind him. “There's a mile of it yet.”

“I could not eat,” I answered, “and we are not going back through the swamp.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, and gave me a startled look.

“We must try to take the schooner,” said I.

Silverside's long jaw fell. “Try to take the schooner?” he gasped.

“Yes,” I answered, “and do it, too.”

“Are you mad, Dr. Ames?”

“Perhaps so,” I answered, “but madness sometimes succeeds, and we're not going to soak here and watch Cullom sail off with Delphine, are we?”

“But it is impossible,” said he.

“No, it's not,” I answered, doggedly. “Cullom will wait for the night breeze, which doesn't spring up until after dark. The moon is late, too, and he will want that. As soon as it gets dark we must swim out, get up over the bow, and rush the deck.”

Silverside gave me a look of mingled pity and contempt.

“You are talking like a child, Dr. Ames,” he said. “To begin with, we haven't got the fetich, and without that the sharks would get us before we had gone two hundred yards. Then, they will be keeping a bright look-out after what has happened. But even if we were to get aboard by some miracle, we have no arms, and what could we do empty-handed against eight or nine? No, we have done all that is humanly possible. If there were time we might go around and attack them on the beach, but it would take three or four hours to get there, Cullom and they would have gone. Cullom will probably load the shell aboard.”

I gave a groan. Silverside's face softened.

“It is hard,” said he, “but what can we do? Fate is fate, and we are only mortal. Come, let us get out of this. We have no more than time enough before nightfall.”

“Then you won't tackle it?” I asked, bitterly.

He shook his head. “If I had the fetich I might,” said he, “but without it I do not dare.”

“Then I must try it alone,” I answered. “Give me your knife.”

He hesitated. “You are young to die,” said he, “and there is always the possibility that Cullom may not offer harm to the girl.”

“How much chance is there of that?” I asked, in a sick voice, and Silverside made no answer. He had wound the belt of cartridges around his neck, and hung his rifle in the crotch of a mangrove. Standing there in water, chest deep, he stared at me moodily from his dark, deep-set eyes.

“You say that you love Therese,” said I, bitterly, “and God knows that up to now you have proved it. Yet you will not try a desperate chance to save what must be dearer to her than life itself, and let me, a stranger, tackle it alone. Suppose we do fail; isn't that better than living on in the knowledge that we let a fighting chance go by? Besides, your life is forfeit already. Von Bulow has proof that you killed Daniel Fairfax, and do you think that he will spare you? Sooner or later he will ferret you out and send you to the gallows. Don't you think it better to die like a man than like a dog?”

He sighed deeply, and a shiver shook his gaunt frame Warm as the water was, I was chilled, myself, though I think that the cold struck from within rather than without.

“I would have done it once,” muttered Silverside, “but now I do not dare. As I told you once, my spirit has been broken. I know that if I saw a shark, or felt one near, I would scream and spoil it all. Sometimes terror gets away with me, and then I am no better than a frightened child. No, doctor, I cannot ... I cannot.”

His voice broke into a sort of whine, and his eyes would not meet my own. Chill after chill shook him, and the still water went from his glistening body in ripples. Presently he looked up, and his eyes were less dull.

“If you are determined to throw your life away,” said he, “let us do this. The tide will turn at sunset, and the schooner swing head out. You work down toward the entrance, and when you see them hoisting the foresail take to the water and swim slowly down. I will get on the other side of the lagoon and open fire from the beach. The range is too long for me to do any damage, except by chance, but it will divert their attention and perhaps keep them under cover. If you manage to get aboard, try to grab a capstan brake; in arms like yours it ought to be a formidable weapon.”

I nodded. “The plan is not bad,” I answered. “'Can you get around there in time?”

“Yes, if I start now.”

“Then start. Give me your knife and what is left of the food. I can eat now that there is work ahead.”

He gave me the knife and some food, then reached for his rifle.

“God be with you,” said he, and turned away. I stood and watched his gaunt, white body pushing through the still, clear water, and presently the jungle closed about it.

XVI.

After Silverside had gone I stood for several moments staring at the spot where his white body dwindled into the jungle. Then I turned to look at the schooner, aboard which the two blacks were still heaving in chain.

Looking backward after a span of years, I am able to appreciate that in those few moments when I stood there, waist deep in the water, there occurred the final stages of such tempering as was destined to be wrought in me. As soft, malleable metal I had come to the Pacific. The hand of the toiler had borne me to the furnace on the night when I found my father's diary, and I had writhed beneath the blast when I had come to realise that the schooner was the Christian Faith, and Cullom my father's assassin. That was the first ordeal, all the more trying for the impotence resulting from the necessity of protecting Delphine. Next had come Silverside's temptation to strike down the two blacks, and whether I proved weak or strong under this test Iam not sure to thisday. At any rate, the result of my action had been the final stage of the tempering process: the plunging of the glowing metal into cold water; and here I was, like a new-forged blade, cold, keen-edged and hungry for my work.

I looked wistfully at the schooner, then up at the sun, now well past the meridian, and cursed the necessary delay. Some conviction, unbased on any reasoning, told me that my score would soon be settled. After reading the diary it had seemed to me that I had known hatred and the thirst for vengeance, but that was nothing to what I felt as I stood there in the swamp. Like a man turning the pages of a ledger I examined my account with Cullom. He had given my father as a feast to cannibals, and turned his consecrated vessel into a floating ulcer of greed and lust. God knows what subsequent crimes the possession of the Christian Faith had made possible to Cullom, but he had come at last to the threshold of perhaps the most evil act of his life, if what Silverside said were true, and Delphine might look for no mercy. Between Cullom and his prey was only a half-naked man, solitary and unarmed, whom he had been hunting through the jungle like a water-rat, shivering on the edge of a morass and staring with burning eyeballs at the vessel, where there was waiting for the sacrifice a sweet and innocent girl, scarcely more than a child, who must at that very moment consider herself to have been basely deserted by her two cowardly companions, who*must have seemed to save themselves, like frightened curs, leaving her under the fangs of the wolf.

This last thought was bitterest of all. How was Delphine to know what my stratagem had been? To her it must have seemed rank, selfish cowardice. There had been no time to tell her of my plan. To her eyes I must have squattered off into the morass like a winged water-fowl. Contrast this with the act of her Kanaka boy, who at the first hint of violence to his mistress had flung himself unarmed at Cullom's throat, and weltered in his blood the next second.

Yet there must have been some Angel Militant close to me, for I stared out at the schooner hungrily and confident of success. Something seemed to whisper to me that I was Nemesis, and that it needed but a little patience before the table of vengeance was spread. I have no idea how long I stood there glaring out at the schooner like some hungry beast of prey, but it must have been more than two hours, and after awhile I saw the whaleboat return loaded, almost awash, with its putrid but valuable cargo. It went in again, this time without Cullom, for I saw his white-clad figure standing by the rail directing the blacks, who may have been cutting out the rotten molluscs. I knew that the filth sluiced through the scuppers would attract a multitude of sharks, and yet I had a feeling that when the time came I need have no fear of them. There is surely a divination which comes in moments of crisis. History would seem to prove this, and yet fools say in their hearts there is no God.

“He ran abaft the wheel, and stood there glowering at me over the spokes like a wild beast at bay.”

The whaleboat returned again, and I looked at the sun and saw that it was getting low. Realising how quickly the tropic night comes down, I turned away from the creek and began to wade through the jungle toward the mouth of the lagoon. Before I had gone far the water deepened and I began to swim, dragging myself ahead by the undergrowth. My coat hampered me, so I tore it off and flung it away, swarming on barefooted and naked to the belt, with Sam Lung's heavy knife dangling from a cord around my neck. It must have caught on some snag, for a little later when I reached for it to cut a creeper which entangled me I found that it was gone.

The flat water swarmed with life; big fishes glided out from under me, and more than once a great banded water-snake wriggled undulating from the matted weed and moss through which I tore my way. These creatures, which would at most times have filled me with horror, left me quite unmoved. I felt as though I were a part of their world; an amphibian, some subject of Neptune's realm. More than that, I was Fate—an avenger of the blood.

Coming out at last on the edge of the lagoon I looked back and saw that the schooner had swung head out to meet the incoming tide, placing me on the starboard bow, and perhaps a mile away. Distance meant nothing to me except in units of time. I had always been a strong swimmer from the days when Keowa Harry had taught me how to dive for shells, and to slip under a fourteen-foot comber and trick the undertow. Thanks to an inheritance of virile blood and clean living I was almost immune from physical fatigue. Even if it had been otherwise, the fire of hatred and a cleaner flame which burned for Delphine would have carried me on.

On the edge of the jungle I hauled myself up into a crotch and waited. The sun went down in a glory of crimson, saffron, and gold, and almost immediately the light began to wane, as it seemed, in soft, rhythmic, pulsating waves of colour. A faint air from the sea, the last of the dying trade, ruffled back the surface of the lagoon like a hand passed over rose-tinted velours. Then, as it darkened, I saw the whale-boat coming from the shore again, and scarcely had she got alongside, when the blacks turned to on the mainsail halliards and the big sail came slowly up, shot with the crimson and gold and opalescent yellow of the swift after- glow which made the surface of the lagoon translucent as the inside of a polished shell. The darkness followed quickly. The sky became a purple dome, flecked with pale, low-hung stars. Across the still, burnished water came the whine of sheaves, and presently I saw the dark mass of the foresail rising against the luminous sky.

The time had come, for at any moment now the land breeze might spring up. I slid like an otter into the soft, darkening water. It felt like cream, and I lounged forward slowly and with long, even strokes. There seemed no limit to the reserve strength in me, and as the muscles of arms and shoulders swelled and hardened, I thought hungrily of Cullom.

Presently, as I swam, there came up from the water a dull concussion, a booming, gurgling sound. An echo was thrown back from the side of the crater. Again came the booming noise, as if from the water, and the echo from the high land.

“Silverside,' I said to myself. “Cullom was right when he called the man a fox.”

Silverside continued firing, and presently there came a more violent concussion, and there sprang from beside the schooner a sudden glow. There was the sound of a heavy report, and a reverberation was tossed about from side to side of the lagoon. I guessed at once what was afoot. Cullom must have had a small gun stowed somewhere aboard, and he had got it up on deck, and was firing at the flash of Silverside's rifle. The report sounded like that of a modern breech-loading gun, a one-pounder, perhaps. The drunken fool must have known how slim a chance there was of hitting anybody, but no doubt he was elated at the recapture of Delphine, and was firing in silly bravado. Whatever his motive, nothing could have served me better, as the concussion was sure to scare away the sharks, while the absurd display would attract the attention of the crew.

As I swam on, I almost smiled to myself, and the words of an old-fashioned doggerel began to jingle in my brain:

“I'm sorry for Mr. Bluebeard,
“I hate for to cause him pain,
“But a h—— of a spree there's sure to be
“When I get aboard again ....”

Over on the beach, Silverside was working cleverly, for now and then he would fire two shots almost simultaneously, and I knew that this was to give the impression that the two of us were together. Then Cullom's one-pounder would bark, and the basin of the lagoon would amplify it to a roar. I could imagine the drunken brute firing away at Silverside's flash, while the blacks craned their necks and watched admiringly, and no one with ever a thought of the Fate that was gliding down in the arms of the new flood tide, breathing hatred and vengeance, while Cullom safeguarded the most dangerous part of the passage with the detonations of his one-pounder.

A puff of air, the forerunner of the might breeze off the land, brought down to me the taint of powder smoke ... and it seemed as though old memories began to awaken, old Instincts to revive. The current was carrying me swiftly, and soon the dark, slack sails of the schooner loomed ahead, and a few minutes later the long jibboom shot out like a lance, and I found myself against the forefoot of the schooner. The tide was rippling past her short-hove cable, and the flare of her overhanging bows sheltered me from possible discovery. I hoisted myself across the bobstay, then stood up, gripping the martingale guy, climbed softly upon it, and hauled my head above the bulwarks, looking down the sweep of her deck.

Standing by the windlass, his back to me, was a native, who, from his manner of holding himself, looked to be an old man. At the foot of the foremast were four more of the crew, and further aft were several more. I saw Cullom's white figure in the stern. He was sighting the gun, and as I looked there came a report, and a shell went humming away to the beach. Before the echo had died I was up over the bulwarks and on the deck. The moon had risen, and its horizontal rays struck me full in the face, and as I straightened my body the old man by the windlass turned and looked at me. He tottered back, clutching at his body with both hands, and I saw the shine of his eye-balls. His face was working, and he seemed trying to speak. I took a step forward, and he screamed.

“Missi Ames... Missi' Ames ...” he cried, then turned and bolted away aft. I sprang to the windlass and wrenched out one of the iron brakes which was still shipped, for Cullom was only waiting for the breeze to get his anchor and go out. My fingers closed around the iron, and I swung it up. It was a fearful weapon, longer than a crowbar, and of about equal weight, but flattened, and with a round handle.

The scream of the old man was echoed from down the deck. With an answering roar I sprang forward. Although I did not realise that the native had called me by name, the panic did not surprise me. I had counted on something of the sort. Afterwards, I understood that the old savage had taken me for the avenging spirit of my father, in whose massacre he had no doubt taken part.

As I rushed down the deck the panic became a wild stampede. I overtook a man whose foot slipped in a mass of stinking oyster filth and struck him down, crushing the dome-shaped skull as one would break an egg. Howling like dogs, the natives fled aft, and leaped over the taffrail into the lagoon. Only one man turned to face me, knife in hand, and him I dealt two blows. The first broke his arm like a twig, the second tore the top of his head away, and I leaped over his body to reach Cullom, who was standing by the gun like a man dazed. He screamed as he saw my face, and flung out both his hands, and I saw that he was unarmed. Then, turning, he ran. abaft the wheel, and stood there glowering at me over the spokes like a wild beast at bay.

I glanced around the deck. There was not a living thing in sight. The stage had been cleared, as one might say, for Cullom and me to play our final act. I let the windlass brake fall on the deck beside me, and walked slowly toward him. He gave a sort of growling whine, the same noise that a dog makes when caught to be beaten, then turned and slunk back against the gallows-frame which took the weight of the main-boom when the sail was slacked down. I thought at first that he was going to leap overboard after the blacks, but maybe fear of the sharks prevented.

I walked up to him slowly, and again he threw out his arms, though he must have seen that I was empty-handed.

“What are ye ...” he snarled, “man or de'il?”

“You know who I am,” I answered, and took a step nearer. His eyes shone at me like the eyes of a cornered rat.

“Then y'are his son ...” he whined.

“Yes,” I answered, 'I am his son ... just as this is his vessel ... the Christian Faith.”

To this day I believe that until I spoke the man was overcome with superstitious fear; that he had heard the “Missi' Ames” screamed by the old savage, and then, seeing my face, took me, as had the black, for the avenging spirit of my father. No doubt the resemblance between us may have been strong in that hour, for even as a callow youth, fresh to all emotion, Fairfax had recognised me from my likeness to my father. But for Cullom the sound of my voice broke the spell, and as he realised that he had to deal with flesh and blood and not a spirit, his strength came back and he sprang for me.

I met him body to body, chest to chest, and my arms slipped under his and gripped him around the small of his back. I forced him against the gallows-frame, a sort of scaffold-like affair, which had a transverse beam a little less than waist high to brace the two upright joists. Only for. that we would have fallen; as it was, he braced himself against it for a moment, and we stood there locked in each other's grip. I dropped my head, driving it under his chin. He shifted his hold, trying to get his arms under mine, and failing in this his thick hands went to my throat. But my chin was against my chest, and he could do nothing.

And then I began to put out slowly the strength that God had given me, and as my grip tightened I could feel the breath as it was squeezed from his quivering body. I began to force him back from above, driving my head against his throat while my arms took up the slack as he yielded. His body began to bend backward, for I had him against the transverse beam of the gallows-frame, and he could not fall.

Backward he went, slowly backward, for I took my time. I knew that the sodden strength was running out of him like water from a sieve, and that it needed only a minute or two to leave him like putty in my hands. His last remaining breath burst from him in a groan ... and I took him up still more slack in my knotted arms. Back, still back ... and his spine was curved like a bent bow. The weight of my head and chest was against the upper part of him, and my knees were against his thighs so that he could not slip. Back... still back, until his body was like a semicircle. He coughed stranglingly, and the blood burst from his mouth and came down on me like a hot shower. Yet still I pressed him back until it seemed to me that I had met with a sudden resistance. But there was nothing there to take his weight, and I put out all of my strength for the final squeeze, and as I forced him down across the transverse there came a sudden jar ... and I knew that his back was broken.

XVII.

A rustle at my shoulder roused me as I was staring at Cullom's body on the deck, and I turned and saw Delphine. God forgive me! for the last hour I had almost forgotten her. She certainly had not figured in my thought when I had dropped the capstan bar and reached for Cullom with my bare hands. And yet, when I turned and saw her standing there, it seemed to me that she had been my single incentive; and where, so shortly ago, I had seemed to have lost sight of her, I now forgot vengeance and Cullom, and my whole heart went out to the white, shrinking figure at my elbow.

I was naked to the waist, my shoulders and arms dripping with blood, but at sight of her I never thought how I must have appeared, and held out my arms. She did not hesitate, but came into them sobbing wildly. I drew her close, lifted her face and kissed her. She grew quiet, and I felt her hands steal up and clasp behind my neck.

“I knew that you would come ... I knew that you would come ...” she sobbed.

“And you didn't think that I had deserted you?”

“Never ....” She pushed herself gently away. “You are covered with blood ...” she cried.

“Blood of a beast,” I answered, “not mine.”

“You are not hurt?”

“Not a scratch ... except from the thorns.”

She looked down at the body on the deck, then drew back a little.

“Is he dead?” she asked, in a low voice.

“He is well on the way to hell by now,” I answered, cheerfully.

“And all the black men?”

“Two have gone Cullom's road. The rest jumped overboard and swam for it.” I stared toward the dark shore, wondering at hearing nothing from Silverside. Then I looked at Delphine.

“Go below, my dear,” I said. “See what you can find to eat. I am hungry, now that the strain is over. Besides, there is some work for me here.”

She looked up at me with a little smile, and I caught her in my arms and kissed her. The freshness of her face was like flowers bathed in dew. She had changed her water-soaked clothes for clean linen which she had found in the lockers of the mate's room. A quaint figure she made in the loose garments which hung about her like a shawl. I doubt if she realised the danger she had escaped, frightened though she had been, nor did my own mind dwell on it, now that the peril was past. I had no wish to stain Cullom's memory beyond the crimes which already blackened his soul. It is even possible that he might have respected her tender youth and innocence. I do not know, but at the time I was willing to forgive him, now that he was dead by my hand as it should have been.

Delphine went below, and I set about my work. The obsequies of Cullom and his blacks were short, and showed no partiality of race. These finished, I threw off the turns of the halliards and lowered the sails. I had no fear of attack from the shore, but I looked under bow and stern to see that nobody was hiding there. Then I drew a bucket of water and washed and went below. Delphine greeted me with a smile, then blushed and looked away, for I was still stripped to the belt; and to a person who is in the habit of seeing daily nude brown skins, the sight of a white one is always startling. I went into the mate's room, and was soon rigged out in a suit of neat blues. Poor chap, he had carried his French love of finery even aboard a private vessel.

I felt like a different person as I came out, clean and refreshed. There was some food on the table, but what I noticed first were Cullom's revolver and a goblet half full of pearls of varying sizes. Delphine, her face like a rose, came shyly toward me.

“I can't believe it ... big brother,” said she, tremulously. But I reached out and drew her into my arms.

“Your big brother has gone away, never to come back, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Are you sorry?”

She looked up at me with misty eyes and quivering lips.

“No ...” she murmured, “not if you really love me.”

My arms tightened about the yielding figure, and I found myself saying rapturous words, such as I had never believed men really said. Delphine, glowing under my kisses, murmured back. She nestled close to me, her dark, curly head against my chest, while I told her of all that had happened; my meeting with Silverside and the rest. When I had finished her arms went about my neck, her glowing face was pressed to mine, and for several moments neither of us spoke. There were tears against my cheek, and the hearts of both of us were full to bursting. We were both too filled with the sense of God's goodness to us to try to speak.

To the person hedged about by civilisation and its artificialities, it may seem strange that after the blood and violence of the last hour we two should have sat there in the cabin with glowing hearts, exchanging vows of love and tenderness for all the world as though we had been hundreds of leagues away from savagery and strife. Yet, in my belief, we are none of us so far removed from elemental passions which have always gone with the struggle for existence and the right to live and love, that those of us who are men find it strange or shocking when Fate decrees that we shall win our mates by force of arms, or those who are women find it appalling to be so won. There was nothing callous or unnatural in our position. As I see it, even to-day, while in the centre of civilisation, and surrounded by wife and children and friends, it is far more natural, and as God ordained, to fight for a bride than to win her by mere persuasion or the power of gold. From time immemorial the steaming blood of an enemy has gone to savour kisses of the purest and tenderest passion, and in surroundings such as ours we hark back quickly to the early instincts of our race. Then, too, Delphine was no nervous, cringing product of an over-civilisation. She was the daughter of Daniel Fairfax, and a mother who for years had found the strength and will to do a man's work. Delphine herself had been conceived of a primordial passion, and though she was endowed with a sweetness which may have been absent in either parent, yet there was no lack in her of rich, red blood, and even of a quality of ruthlessness which may have been partly hereditary, partly the result of her island life. This same ruthlessness, when all is said, obtains more frequently in women than in men, perhaps because of the maternal instinct, the grandest in the world in its one idea. Cullom was dead, and Delphine was glad—all the gladder, perhaps, that he had fallen by my hand. So what more need be said? His evil memory slid from our thoughts as his evil body had slid from the rail a few short minutes before, and the only difficulty was to realise that all of the immediate past was not a nightmare.

That which was far more concrete came from the contact of the pliant body which I held in my arms, and the warm, quivering lips which were pressed to mine. Wherefore we gave ourselves up to the rapture of the hour, and I am afraid that we forgot that gaunt wolf, Silverside, whose cunning had held quite the value of my cruder force. Once or twice we spoke of him, I believe, but neither of us felt any fear for his safety, or any doubt but that he would signal to us the following day from some point along the beach. Silverside had told us that he had sent the women with food to a safe hiding place, and he was armed. Delphine thought that this hiding place must be one of the many caves in the side of the crater.

“I looked again, and my heart gave a bound as I recognised the vessel for the 'Favourite.'”

After we had eaten our supper we went on deck, which was still foul from the reek of the pearl oysters. Those still uncut I shovelled into the whaleboat, and let her drift off at the end of a long painter. Then I sluiced down the decks and set the awning, for it did not seem prudent to sleep below, although I had not much fear of the blacks trying to retake the schooner.

Delphine soon became drowsy, poor girl; so I sent her to bed, and spent the night alternately dozing in a hammock and patrolling the vessel. Nothing occurred to disturb us. The chances are that the old fellow who had first seen me had already told his mates that the spirit of “Missi” (Missionary) Ames had returned to destroy and take vengeance on them. No doubt I had loomed gigantic with the newly-risen moon glowing pallidly on my white skin. My likeness to my father was striking, I was afterwards told. Fairfax had known me from it after an interval of many years, and perhaps the old savage had always been uneasy about the crime, as a missionary holds a certain spiritual fear for even the cannibals.

I was dozing restfully in the crimson dawn when Delphine came to me. We spent the day in waiting for some news of Silverside, but not a sign did we see of any living being. Delphine wished to go to the bungalow to get some of her things, but I would not hear of it. I did not know where the savages might be lurking, and I was unwilling to leave the boat on the beach while we went to the house, nor could I think of letting her go alone. So we remained aboard, resting and quite happy, and when the night came I remained on deck, as the night before.

Still another day came with no sign from Silverside. I began to wonder what we should do if he failed entirely to appear. The only course seemed to remain as we were and wait for Gaston Berdou. Delphine was worried about her women, one of whom was her old nurse, and the other two the wives of the men whom Cullom had shot down. My own conviction of the matter was that the blacks had found the hiding place, killed the women, and kept Silverside from returning after fresh ammunition; but I said nothing of this to Delphine.

We were sitting under the awning when suddenly Delphine, who had been facing the bow, sprang to her feet with a cry.

“Look ... look ... a sail.”

I picked up the glasses and ran to the main rigging. Half-way up I made out a schooner heading for the atoll with a fresh, following breeze. As she neared the reef, Delphine, who had climbed up beside me, studied her through the glass,

“That is not mother,” she said. “The sails of the Rossignol are newer than that, and this schooner is larger.”

I looked again, and my heart gave a bound as I recognised the vessel for the Favourite. There was a patch on the mainsail of which I remembered the shape.

“It's the Favourite,” I said. “How did Connor find this place?'

Down came the schooner, hauling on the wind, as we had done, to pass between the double line of reefs, then paying off smartly to run down through the second entrance. In came her jib, the mainsail dropped after it, and under foresail and forestaysail she glided into the lagoon and headed straight for where we lay. Close aboard I recognised the short, squat figure of Connor, and beside him at the wheel a slender person in white clothes. Delphine uttered a scream of delight.

“There is mother,” she cried, and began to wave frantically. Scarcely had the vessel lost her way when down went the anchor and a boat took the water. The Kanakas tumbled aboard and picked up their oars, and Connor and the woman slipped down and took their places in the stern. The boat shoved clear and came foaming toward us.

“Trail ...” shouted Connor, and the boat glided alongside, and a moment later Connor was up over the rail and had me in a grip that made my ribs crack.

“Glory be to the Virgin ...” he bawled. “Lad, lad, I niver hoped to see you this side the Valley o' the Shadow.” And he passed the back of his horny hand across his eyes.

I loosed myself from his hug, and turned to see Delphine locked in her mother's arms, and when the two separated and Mrs. Fairfax turned to me I could understand how she had deceived the world so long in the personality of Gaston Berdou. She was nearly as tall as I, straight as a mast, with a supple figure which betrayed no feminine curves beyond the fullness of bosom which was masked by her loose serge coat and pongee shirt. Her face was that of a handsome fellow of twenty-five, with a Latin softness of feature, an olive skin with a warm flush shining through from beneath, eyes of a deep, violet blue which were black lashed, and hair which clustered in a dark, wavy mass about her ears and the back of her head. It was a face which was striking at first glance from the expression of extreme intelligence, resolution, and the suggestion of strongly-contained passions. Any man would think twice before attempting familiarity or deception toward a person with such a face. There was a decided masculine note to the firm mouth and the darkness of the upper lip.

“Mother,” said Delphine, “this is Douglas Ames, who saved me from being kidnapped by Cullom. We are going to be married as soon as ever we can.” And the rich colour flooded her face.

Followed a perfect chaos of questions and counter-questions and interrupted answers, until we all became so confused that Mrs. Fairfax quietly suggested that we sit down and get at the tale with some sort of coherence. I was elected narrator, so I began from the time when I had parted with Connor on the beach. The story held them tense and quiet, though Connor had to be suppressed several times by an authoritative word or two from Mrs. Fairfax, who was listening intently, a glow in her cheeks, and her deep, blue eyes never leaving my face. But when I told briefly of Cullom's death, Connor burst from all restraint. He sprang to his feet and gave me another hug.

“Oh, lad, lad ...” he almost sobbed. 'And ye bruk the divil's back on the brace o' the gallus'-frame? Glory to the Saints. Oh, but hell must ha' been hungry for the baste...”

This and much more, until Mrs. Fairfax interrupted curtly.

“Then Silverside and the women are on the island ... with the blacks?” She turned to Connor. “We must arm and go ashore at once,” said she. 'I think that I know where the women are hiding. Keowa Harry took me once to a cave which he had found on the other side of the crater while hunting goats. He said at the time that if we should ever need a refuge it would be a perfect place, as there is a sort of labyrinth inside. The women knew of the place.” She looked at me. “Did Silverside tell you why Cullom was so anxious to destroy him?” she asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Cullom was for many years Von Bulow's man. He learned that the comprador had advanced money to Silverside, taking his simple, unendorsed note. Then he discovered later that Silverside had bought the Rossignol and turned her over to 'Gaston Berdou.' Cullom met me two years ago in Apia and tried to blackmail me. He suspected my real identity, and wished me to marry him and turn the schooner into a pearler, saying that he knew of an island where he was sure there were rich pearl fisheries. Failing with me, he went to Silverside and tried to intimidate him. Silverside was then cook in a hotel in Melbourne, and, in his ruthless way, when he discovered that Cullom had him to some extent in his power, he attempted to poison him, and very nearly succeeded. But Cullom recovered, and Silverside fled to the United States. As soon as Cullom was able he went to Von Bulow and told him what he knew, with the result that when I went into Apia on this last trip Von Bulow libelled the schooner. She was taken in custody, and I went to Suva by steamer to try to arrange the matter with Von Bulow. He refused to make any terms whatever, and now I understand why. Knowing that Silverside would be obliged to bring the yawl here, he wished to delay my return. In Suva I met Captain Connor, who agreed to bring me here, for I was anxious about Delphine.”

“Ye see, lad,” said Connor, “when you did not show up I thought ye must have crossed the trail o' Silverside and followed it, God knows where. I went to Von Bulow, and he grinned like a haythen joss, and denied all knowledge of ayther you or the cook. Then, in Paul's place, I heard a disquietin' tale from a dhrunken beach-comber av a fight down be the ind 0' the town and two men shanghaied by a gang o' coolies. This felly had skulked benathe a wall, fearin' another hand might be naded. 'Why coolies?' I said to mesilf, and when the nixt mor'rning I saw that the pearlin' yawl had gone out I begun to have me doubts. Inquirin' here and there, I found she was in command o' Sam Lung, that I knew to be in Von Bulow's pay, and I wint to the ould divil and charged him with kidnappin'. He grinned more than iver, and knew nothin'. So when Gaston Berdou come aboard and told me he was the widdy o' Dan'! Fairfax, and would I please give him, or her, I should say, a ride to the island where she had left her daughter, and that 'twas there she had been gatherin' pearls, and that Von Bulow had libelled the schooner, claimin' it was bought with his money loaned to Silverside, and that the Chinaman would make no terms, I begun to see some light. So away we come, and now...”

But I was not listening, interesting as the tale was. Something down the beach had caught my eye, and I jumped up and reached for the glass.

Half a mile below the bungalow there had slipped from the dense foliage a white figure, which seemed to pause for an instant, then turned and came running swiftly up the beach in our direction. It had covered perhaps a hundred yards, when from the jungle farther down from the spot whence it had emerged there appeared first one, then three more blacks. A fifth appeared, then a sixth and a seventh, leaping out of the undergrowth to turn and course after the quarry like a pack of wolves.

“Look ...” I cried. “It's Silverside ...and the blacks are after him.”

XVIII.

Connor and I, acting on one impulse, rushed for the boat. Cullom's revolver was lying on the companionway hatch, and I snatched it up as I went. We tumbled into the boat, to the startled astonishment of the crew, for as the boat was hidden from the beach by the schooner they had seen nothing.

Connor was bellowing orders as he went over the side, and in a jiffy we had shoved clear and were heading in for the beach. Standing in the stern we could see that the blacks were gaining rapidly on Silverside, who presently cut across down the beach for the hard sand at the water's edge. He must have seen the boat immediately it passed clear of the schooner, for he flung up one arm as if in a frantic appeal for haste.

“Pull, ye divils ... pull ...” roared Connor; and the stout ash bent under the muscular arms of the Kanakas, who guessed now that some desperate business was afoot.

As we foamed ahead, rapidly lessening the distance between us, I could see that the blacks had shortened Silverside's lead by more than half, and at the present rate were bound to overtake him before we should have got within a quarter of a mile. Silverside must have realised it too, for suddenly he splashed out through the water until chest deep, when he flung himself forward and began to swim. The three foremost blacks followed him. Silverside struck out at right angles from the beach, and for the moment my relief was intense, for I did not believe that any man, white or black, could outswim that amphibian. Connor slightly altered the boat's course, and as we watched it was plain that the three dark heads were rapidly overhauling the first one. And then Connor gripped my arm.

“Look,” said he, “another hand in the game....”

Some distance ahead of Silverside a dark object was moving through the water, slowly shortening the distance between them. The surface of the lagoon was very still, and it needed but a single glance to see that this new factor was a shark. Silverside had discovered it, for he was beating the water as he swam, and I could guess at the terror of the poor wretch. But at least this last menace removed the former peril, for the blacks discovered the monster, and turning made back for shore, shouting and splashing and keeping close together.

“Pull ... pull ...” shouted Connor, jumping up and down and flinging his arm at the straining Kanakas. We were still five hundred yards from Silverside, whom the shark was steadily approaching, and in the hope of frightening the brute by the concussion I threw up the revolver, aimed above the gliding fin, and fired. The ball splashed the water a little short and in a fairly good line, but was without effect, for the fin approached even closer to the struggling man. It seemed to pass in front of him, and I fired again, taking the risk of hitting the swimmer. The fin passed on to the other side, then turned and started to return.

“Keep it up, lad,” roared Connor. “The baste is a bit leary.”

Again I fired, and again, as it seemed, without effect. Above the thresh of our oars came the sound of Silverside's repeated screams—shrill, frantic, agonised. We were getting close now, and could plainly see the swirls in the water made by the shark's sinuous tail as it sculled back and forth, working gradually closer. Once the fin disappeared, and we thought that it was all over, for Silverside's head vanished almost at the same time. But a moment later it reappeared, as did also the shark, which turned slowly and advanced to the attack.

“Fire, lad, fire ...” growled Connor.

I pressed the trigger, but there came only a click in response. I had snatched up the loaded revolver without waiting to run below after the cartridge belt.

“It's empty,” I cried.

“Then bang on the gunnel with a stretcher,” bawled Connor. “God save us... there he goes again....”

We were now so close that we could see the huge, mottled shape through the clear water, and the shine of the belly as the shark rolled on its side and lunged at the struggling man. But Silverside dived again, straight down, like a diving guillemot. Several seconds passed, and they seemed like hours. Then up came the glistening face just under our bows, and as it broke from the water scream after scream rang out, and we saw that he was flapping like a wounded duck in a smother of bloody spume. The shark appeared at a distance of ten yards, and, as though roused to greater activity by the flavour in its maw, turned with surprising swiftness and rushed back to the attack.

But Silverside was already under the boat's bows, and as the bow oar turned on his thwart he saw the crisis, whipped up the boat-hook, and cast it harpoonlike at the broad back of the shark as it passed in front of him. The brute swerved, there was a wide whirlpool and the sucking sound of the water ... and then a white body in a crimson zone came writhing against the side, and was gathered up in the powerful arms of the stroke oar.

I bent over Silverside as he lay limp and inanimate in the bottom of the boat, where the big Kanaka had gently lowered him. Blood was gushing from somewhere, and as I turned him over we saw that his right arm had been shorn off at the elbow as cleanly as though cut away by a single blow of an axe. It did not take two seconds to apply a tourniquet. Silverside lay unconscious, lifeless, to all appearance, for his breathing was imperceptible, and he was without pulse.

“Take him to the Favourite,” I said to Connor. “My surgical kit is aboard, and I can do what's necessary.”

Connor nodded and swung the boat's head. The men gave way, and for a moment we ploughed along in silence. Then, said Connor:

“Look at the felly's remainin' thumb, docthor. Belike Jawn Shark has not done him so bad a turn as it might appear. The ways of Fate are amazin'.”

I stooped and raised Silverside's left hand, turning it palm upward. Glancing at the thumb, which was long and well formed, we saw that it was free of any scar. Connor, leaning over my shoulder, gave a grunt of satisfaction.

“There's the damnin' evidence o' the Fairfax case reposin' in the belly of a tiger-shark,” said he. “Any man who wants it can go there and look for it.”

“But how about Von Bulow?” I asked. “He could testify that he saw the mark on the store list.”

“Von Bulow will do no testifyin' whatsoever,” said Connor, dryly. “We will saw it off even with Von Bulow. We will tell him that if he dares so much as yip we will jack him up for kidnappin' you and this poor devil of Silverside. Besides, what is it worth, his unsupported testimony? for if we are questioned, you and I, we will perjure ourselves like little men. Silverside has suffered enough, I'm thinkin'; and besides, after all I have heard from the widdy Fairfax, it was in my opinion no crime to strangle 'Big Devil.'”

He fell silent, staring at the unconscious figure at his feet.

“A strange, strange man,” he said, and shot the whaleboat alongside the Favourite.

I got to work at once on Silverside, and had everything finished and the dressings applied before he returned to consciousness. Connor had gone back aboard the Annie Laurie, as Cullom had rechristened the Christian Faith, and when Silverside's eyes fluttered open, the first face that he saw was that of Therese Fairfax, who was leaning over his bunk,

“Therese ...” he murmured. His deep-set eyes opened wider, and there was an expression in their lustrous depths which made me turn away my head. “Therese ...” he repeated in a stronger voice.

“Yes, my poor Yan,” she answered, very gently. “'I am here. All is well.”

“And Delphine ...” he whispered, eagerly.

“Delphine is unhurt, thanks to you and Dr. Ames. Are you in pain, Yan?”

A smile transfigured the gaunt, forbidding face. He turned his head slowly. Therese Fairfax was resting on one arm, her hand on the edge of the pillow. Silverside's lips brushed her wrist. He fell to kissing it, and began to sob. There was nothing lover-like in the act, which was rather that of a dog which licks the hand of its mistress and whines. Therese stroked the damp forehead with her free hand. Her eyes were brimming over, and the tears splashed down on the face of Silverside. He was murmuring brokenly in a strange tongue which sounded like Polish, but presently he said, in French:

“I would die tens of deaths for you, dearest friend.”

“You will not die, Yan,” she answered, soothingly. “Here is Dr. Ames with some broth for you. Are you in too great pain to eat?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “I suffer no pain, Therese,” he said, “and I have not tasted food for three days.”

I handed the broth to Therese. “Feed him slowly,” I said, then turned and went slowly out. When I returned, half an hour later, Silverside was talking slowly, and with an effort. His returning pulse had brought pain with it, as I could see from his eyes. Therese looked up at me. Her face was pale, and her blue eyes seemed to burn.

“He says that the blacks found the cave where the women were hid,” she told me. He thinks that they have probably killed them. When you drove the blacks off the schooner they swam ashore. Silverside had used up all his ammunition, but he did not want to return to the cave, as he was afraid that they would track him there; so he made for the other side of the crater, then lost his trail in the rocks, where he spent the night. The next morning he worked around to the hiding place, and when he came within sight of the cave the blacks were clustered about the entrance. They saw him and gave chase. They have been hunting him ever since, and he has been doubling about the island like a fox.”

“I saw the Favourite come in from the top of the cliffs,” muttered Silverside, “and as I was nearly spent I determined to make a dash, though I knew that they were somewhere below me. Perhaps they may not have killed the women, who might have hidden somewhere in the cave. The place is a labyrinth.”

It was too late then to go ashore, as the sun was almost down, so we planned an expedition for the following daybreak. I gave Silverside an opiate, and we went on deck.

That night I had a long talk with Therese Fairfax, and when it was over she took my head in her hands and kissed me on either cheek.

“Le bon Dieu sent you to protect my little daughter,” she said. “She loves you very dearly, it seems; and, of course, you cannot help but love her, so you will marry and be radiantly happy. God bless you both and send you every joy.”

I tried to thank her in a fitting manner, but made rather a mess of it, whereat she laughed and kissed me again. Then I jumped up and ran below, where Delphine was talking to Connor. I kissed Delphine, whereat Connor, guessing what was afoot, promptly followed my example, then bawled to the mess boy for a bottle of champagne.

In the course of our talk Therese told me Silverside's early history. He was, as I had thought, a Pole of noble birth, who had graduated as a physician and surgeon and had practised in his own country for three years. Then, having become involved in a revolutionary plot, he with others had been sentenced to Siberia. Through his resource and ingenuity Silverside had contrived the escape of a party of political exiles, but was recaptured and underwent severe punishment, including the knout, in spite of which he escaped a second time. This effort was successful, for he had managed, after untold hardship, to get across Siberia to the sea, where he had shipped as cook aboard a schooner bound for a sealing voyage in the Smoky Seas. The. man appeared to have been a Jonah, for the schooner was captured by a Russian gunboat while poaching on Russian preserves, and the crew were sentenced to the mercury mines. Silverside spent four years in this awful servitude, when he managed to escape, and made his way to Japan, where he secured a billet as cook on the yacht of the Marquis de Moulincourt. Therese had come out from France as the companion of the marquise, who was a distant relative, and Silverside, on board the yacht, became imbued with the powerful devotion which had been the sole incentive of all his subsequent life. Therese told me that this unasked attachment had been from the first unselfish and impersonal. It had been the result of her befriending him on one or two occasions, and showing him a kindliness such as the poor fellow had not received for many years at the hands of any person. The rest of the story I had already heard from Silverside, and was vouched for by Therese.

After hearing the tale I must say that I felt, as did Connor, that Silverside had suffered quite enough, and that, as Christian folk, we were bound to do all in our power to shield him, without regard to the letter of the law. Where Therese was concerned the man was possessed of a single fixed idea, and scarcely to be considered as a responsible agent.

I asked Therese (she had told me to call her by this name, and I could guess why) about the peculiar aversion with which Silverside appeared to affect everybody with whom he came in contact.

"Yes,” she admitted, “that is quite true. I have never heard a single person say a good word for the poor man. He has often spoken to me about it. Perhaps it is the haunting horror in his face which inspires antipathy, or perhaps it is because he is a man of single ideas, with no place for outside affections. In the beginning, this one idea was Polish liberty, and he was willing to sacrifice anything, or anybody, to it without a qualm. Afterwards it became myself, and I have not the slightest doubt that he would always have been quite ready to contrive the slaughter of a multitude it he thought that it would profit me. But this same spirit, which one might admire in a faithful dog, is not permissible in a human being, and his fellow humans resent it. At first, while sorry for Yan, he affected me in the same way, but I came later to understand and admire him, especially when I discovered that his devotion was so utterly detached. I knew that he loved me, but it has always been the love of the soul.” And she grew silent and thoughtful.

Connor, Therese and four of the crew, all armed with rifles, went ashore at daybreak to look for the women. Delphine and I were left with two men to guard the vessels, though there was small danger of attack. We passed the morning quietly, and great was our joy when the party returned about noon with the women, who, as Silverside had suggested, had heard the blacks coming and hid in one of the many subterranean passages of the place. They had also had the sense to take what was left of the food and the two rifles with them, so that the blacks had no firearms. These were not seen, and Connor was for remaining to hunt them out, but we all vetoed this plan.

It was then decided to divide our force and proceed to Auckland with the two vessels, there to report to the authorities the affair of Cullom, and to declare the discovery of the pearl fisheries. But what was of even greater interest to Delphine and myself was Therese's consent to our immediate marriage.

Therese, four of Connor's Kanakas and two of the women were to take the Annie Laurie directly to Auckland. Connor, Delphine and her old nurse and I, with three sailors, were to go on the Favourite, calling at Suva for a few words with Von Bulow, then proceeding to Auckland. As the Favourite was a schooner of over a hundred tons, and a smart sailer, we expected to arrive before the others, taking aboard Keowa Harry and certain other members of Theresa's crew at Suva.

And so, at dawn of the next day, with what was left of the soft, perfume-laden night breeze, we slipped gently out of the lagoon, the Annie Laure leading the way, and ran between the long, double line of reefs over which the great surf incessantly thundered; and as I stood with arm about my bride soon to be, and we looked back together at the still lagoon now glowing with the promise of the sunrise, and the grim crater already painted with mauve and saffron and edged with a rim of purest gold, I drew the girl to me and kissed her lips and quoted, softly: “'God's in His heaven; all's right with the world.'”

••••• The rest of my story dwells with me mostly as a series of pictures; the happy, smiling face of Von Bulow as Connor talked to him in no honeyed words, and his bland assurance that so great was his joy at the pleasant ending of the whole unfortunate affair that he held no slightest desire to act spitefully toward any living person, though his business policy made it necessary for him to press his claim on the Rossignol, which had been bought with his money. This he was permitted to do. The old scoundrel sent Delphine as a wedding present a superb silver tea service, which the humour of the situation compelled us to accept.

Another picture is the courteously-conducted official inquiry at Auckland, and the unofficial compliments which I received from the clean-cut old Englishman who conducted the case and expressed his views on the service which I had rendered in ridding Oceanica of a very great scoundrel. He became a family friend when all was over, if not before, and gave Delphine away at the wedding ceremony, which was performed by that dear old soul, her schoolmaster, the Rev. Silas Dinwiddie.

Still another picture is the wry face of Therese when she finally yielded to the arguments of Sir Charles, strenuously supported by Captain William Connor, and agreed to shed peace on the shade of Daniel Fairfax and claim his fortune. Silverside, greatly broken, was likewise reconciled to this. Therese had no wish to leave the islands; the life was in her blood, and Silverside was happy in the thought that he might now serve her faithfully until death claimed him.

But the crowning masterpiece of my collection is the picture of Delphine's radiant face as she raised it at the church door and offered her fragrant lips to her husband.

The End.