des. Don Martin, here, who is a person of importance. . . ."

"I've spoken my mind plainly. I have said as much as I dare. On my word
I have," declared Lingard with an air of good temper.

"Ah!" said d'Alcacer, reflectively, "then your reserve is a matter of
pledged faith--of--of honour?"

Lingard also appeared thoughtful for a moment.

"You may put it that way. And I owe nothing to a man who couldn't see my
hand when I put it out to him as I came aboard."

"You have so much the advantage of us here," replied d'Alcacer, "that
you may well be generous and forget that oversight; and then just a
little more confidence. . . ."

"My dear d'Alcacer, you are absurd," broke in Mr. Travers, in a calm
voice but with white lips. "I did not come out all this way to shake
hands promiscuously and receive confidences from the first adventurer
that comes along."

D'Alcacer stepped back with an almost imperceptible inclination of the
head at Lingard, who stood for a moment with twitching face.

"I _am_ an adventurer," he burst out, "and if I hadn't been an
adventurer, I would have had to starve or work at home for such people
as you. If I weren't an adventurer, you would be most likely lying dead
on this deck with your cut throat gaping at the sky."

Mr. Travers waved this speech away. But others also had heard. Carter
listened watchfully and something, some alarming notion seemed to dawn
all at once upon the thick little sailing-master, who rushed on his
short legs, and tugging at Carter's sleeve, stammered desperately:

"What's he saying? Who's he? What's up? Are the natives unfriendly? My
book says--'Natives friendly all along this coast!' My book says--"

Carter, who had glanced over the side, jerked his arm free.

"You go down into the pantry, where you belong, Skipper, and read that
bit about the natives over again," he said to his superior officer, with
savage contempt. "I'll be hanged if some of them ain't coming aboard now
to eat you--book and all. Get out of the way, and let the gentlemen have
the first chance of a row."

Then addressing Lingard, he drawled in his old way:

"That crazy mate of yours has sent your boat back, with a couple of
visitors in her, too."

Before he apprehended plainly the meaning of these words, Lingard caught
sight of two heads rising above the rail, the head of Hassim and the
head of Immada. Then their bodies ascended into view as though these two
beings had gradually emerged from t