pluppa, as the men came trotting along the
swinging high planks, and then at last, the dollop, dollop, as the stuff
shot into the hold. "Another barrow-load, thank God! Another
fifteen hundred, or it may be two thousand pounds, for the saving of
Ponderevo!..."

I found out many things about myself and humanity in those weeks of
effort behind Mordet Island. I understand now the heart of the sweater,
of the harsh employer, of the nigger-driver. I had brought these
men into a danger they didn't understand, I was fiercely resolved to
overcome their opposition and bend and use them for my purpose, and I
hated the men. But I hated all humanity during the time that the quap
was near me.

And my mind was pervaded, too, by a sense of urgency and by the fear
that we should be discovered and our proceedings stopped. I wanted to
get out to sea again--to be beating up northward with our plunder. I was
afraid our masts showed to seaward and might betray us to some curious
passer on the high sea. And one evening near the end I saw a canoe
with three natives far off down the lake; I got field-glasses from the
captain and scrutinised them, and I could see them staring at us. One
man might have been a half-breed and was dressed in white. They watched
us for some time very quietly and then paddled off into some channel in
the forest shadows.

And for three nights running, so that it took a painful grip upon my
inflamed imagination, I dreamt of my uncle's face, only that it was
ghastly white like a clown's, and the throat was cut from ear to ear--a
long ochreous cut. "Too late," he said; "Too late!..."

VI

A day or so after we had got to work upon the quap I found myself so
sleepless and miserable that the ship became unendurable. Just before
the rush of sunrise I borrowed Pollack's gun, walked down the planks,
clambered over the quap heaps and prowled along the beach. I went
perhaps a mile and a half that day and some distance beyond the ruins
of the old station. I became interested in the desolation about me, and
found when I returned that I was able to sleep for nearly an hour. It
was delightful to have been alone for so long,--no captain, no Pollack,
no one. Accordingly I repeated this expedition the next morning and the
next until it became a custom with me. There was little for me to do
once the digging and wheeling was organised, and so these prowlings of
mine grew longer and longer, and presently I began to take food with me