'Is it not?' said Attwater. 'Yes, the evenings here would be very
pleasant if one had anything to do. By day, of course, one can shoot.'

'You shoot?' asked Herrick.

'Yes, I am what you would call a fine shot,' said Attwater. 'It is
faith; I believe my balls will go true; if I were to miss once, it would
spoil me for nine months.'

'You never miss, then?' said Herrick.

'Not unless I mean to,' said Attwater. 'But to miss nicely is the art.
There was an old king one knew in the western islands, who used to empty
a Winchester all round a man, and stir his hair or nick a rag out of his
clothes with every ball except the last; and that went plump between the
eyes. It was pretty practice.'

'You could do that?' asked Herrick, with a sudden chill.

'Oh, I can do anything,' returned the other. 'You do not understand:
what must be, must.'

They were now come near to the back part of the house. One of the men
was engaged about the cooking fire, which burned with the clear, fierce,
essential radiance of cocoanut shells. A fragrance of strange meats was
in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps were lighted, so that
the place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees with many complicated
patterns of shadow.

'Come and wash your hands,' said Attwater, and led the way into a clean,
matted room with a cot bed, a safe, or shelf or two of books in a glazed
case, and an iron washing-stand. Presently he cried in the native, and
there appeared for a moment in the doorway a plump and pretty young
woman with a clean towel.

'Hullo!' cried Herrick, who now saw for the first time the fourth
survivor of the pestilence, and was startled by the recollection of the
captain's orders.

'Yes,' said Attwater, 'the whole colony lives about the house, what's
left of it. We are all afraid of devils, if you please! and Taniera and
she sleep in the front parlour, and the other boy on the verandah.'

'She is pretty,' said Herrick.

'Too pretty,' said Attwater. 'That was why I had her married. A man
never knows when he may be inclined to be a fool about women; so when we
were left alone, I had the pair of them to the chapel and performed the
ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic view
of marriage,' he explained.

'And that strikes you as a safeguard?' asked Herrick with amazement.

'Certainly. I am a plain man and very literal. WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
TOGETHER, are the words, I fancy. So one married them, and