on the coast last evening?"
asked Lingard in his gentlest tone. "Didn't you tell me something about
it when I came on board?"

"I tried to," said Carter, frankly. "But I soon gave it up. You didn't
seem to pay any attention to what I was saying. I thought you wanted to
be left alone for a bit. What can I know of your ways, yet, sir? Are you
aware, Captain Lingard, that since this morning I have been down five
times at the cabin door to look at you? There you sat. . . ."

He paused and Lingard said: "You have been five times down in the
cabin?"

"Yes. And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some notice
of me. I can't be left without orders. There are two ships to look
after, a lot of things to be done. . . ."

"There is nothing to be done," Lingard interrupted with a mere murmur
but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while.

"Even to know that much would have been something to go by," he ventured
at last. "I couldn't let you sit there with the sun getting pretty low
and a long night before us."

"I feel stunned yet," said Lingard, looking Carter straight in the face,
as if to watch the effect of that confession.

"Were you very near that explosion?" asked the young man with
sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's person.
But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's head seemed to
have been singed.

"Near," muttered Lingard. "It might have been my head." He pressed it
with both hands, then let them fall. "What about that man?" he asked,
brusquely. "Where did he come from? . . . I suppose he is dead now," he
added in an envious tone.

"No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat," answered Carter. "I will
tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to give you up,
dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a little in the
afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled in shore, taking
soundings to find a passage if there was one. I meant to go back and
look for you with the brig or without the brig--but that doesn't
matter now. There were three or four floating logs in sight. One of the
Calashes in my boat made out something red on one of them. I thought it
was worth while to go and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It
had got entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into
the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found out
that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back to life