ith a smile.

'No, I dare say not,' said Davis. 'No, I suppose not. Not with all your
gods about you, and in as snug a berth as this. For it is a pretty snug
berth,' said he, with a sweeping look.

'The spot, as you are good enough to indicate, is not entirely
intolerable,' was the reply.

'Shell, I suppose?' said Davis.

'Yes, there was shell,' said Attwater.

'This is a considerable big beast of a lagoon, sir,' said the captain.
'Was there a--was the fishing--would you call the fishing anyways GOOD?'

'I don't know that I would call it anyways anything,' said Attwater, 'if
you put it to me direct.'

'There were pearls too?' said Davis.

'Pearls, too,' said Attwater.

'Well, I give out!' laughed Davis, and his laughter rang cracked like a
false piece. 'If you're not going to tell, you're not going to tell, and
there's an end to it.'

'There can be no reason why I should affect the least degree of secrecy
about my island,' returned Attwater; 'that came wholly to an end with
your arrival; and I am sure, at any rate, that gentlemen like you and Mr
Whish, I should have always been charmed to make perfectly at home. The
point on which we are now differing--if you can call it a difference--is
one of times and seasons. I have some information which you think I
might impart, and I think not. Well, we'll see tonight! By-by, Whish!'
He stepped into his boat and shoved off. 'All understood, then?' said
he. 'The captain and Mr Whish at six-thirty, and you, Hay, at four
precise. You understand that, Hay? Mind, I take no denial. If you're not
there by the time named, there will be no banquet; no song, no supper,
Mr Whish!'

White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal of parti-coloured fishes
in the scarce denser medium below; between, like Mahomet's coffin, the
boat drew away briskly on the surface, and its shadow followed it over
the glittering floor of the lagoon. Attwater looked steadily back
over his shoulders as he sat; he did not once remove his eyes from the
Farallone and the group on her quarter-deck beside the house, till
his boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurried
ashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in the chequered dusk of
the grove until the house received him.

The captain, with a gesture and a speaking countenance, called the
adventurers into the cabin.

'Well,' he said to Herrick, when they were seated, 'there's one good job
at least. He's taken to you in earnest