with eager
expectancy. In the open space at the head of the stair, Huish was partly
supported by the other native; his face wreathed in meaningless smiles,
his mind seemingly sunk in the contemplation of an unlighted cigar.

'Well,' said Attwater, 'you seem to me to be a very twopenny pirate!'

The captain uttered a sound in his throat for which we have no name;
rage choked him.

'I am going to give you Mr Whish--or the wine-sop that remains of him,'
continued Attwater. 'He talks a great deal when he drinks, Captain
Davis of the Sea Ranger. But I have quite done with him--and return the
article with thanks. Now,' he cried sharply. 'Another false movement
like that, and your family will have to deplore the loss of an
invaluable parent; keep strictly still, Davis.'

Attwater said a word in the native, his eye still undeviatingly fixed on
the captain; and the servant thrust Huish smartly forward from the
brink of the stair. With an extraordinary simultaneous dispersion of
his members, that gentleman bounded forth into space, struck the earth,
ricocheted, and brought up with his arms about a palm. His mind was
quite a stranger to these events; the expression of anguish that
deformed his countenance at the moment of the leap was probably
mechanical; and he suffered these convulsions in silence; clung to the
tree like an infant; and seemed, by his dips, to suppose himself engaged
in the pastime of bobbing for apples. A more finely sympathetic mind or
a more observant eye might have remarked, a little in front of him on
the sand, and still quite beyond reach, the unlighted cigar.

'There is your Whitechapel carrion!' said Attwater. 'And now
you might very well ask me why I do not put a period to you at once, as
you deserve. I will tell you why, Davis. It is because I have nothing to
do with the Sea Ranger and the people you drowned, or the Farallone and
the champagne that you stole. That is your account with God, He keeps
it, and He will settle it when the clock strikes. In my own case, I have
nothing to go on but suspicion, and I do not kill on suspicion, not even
vermin like you. But understand! if ever I see any of you again, it is
another matter, and you shall eat a bullet. And now take yourself off.
March! and as you value what you call your life, keep your hands up as
you go!'

The captain remained as he was, his hands up, his mouth open: mesmerised
with fury.

'March!' said Attwater. 'One--two--three!'

And D