I worked smoothly together," he said. "The little man was
very pleasant and affable; and I met him half way. The blacks brought up
the shells, and we idled through the days, and played cards at night. We
divided the take, each day; so our stakes ran fairly high. But luck has a
way of balancing. On the day when we saw the end in sight, we were fairly
even....

"Fetcher, and the blacks and I went ashore to get fruit from the trees
there. Plenty of it everywhere; and we were running short. We went into
the brush together, very pleasantly; and he fell a little behind. I
looked back, and his knife brushed my neck and quivered in a tree a yard
beyond me. So I went back and took him in my hands. He had another
knife--the little man fairly bristled with them. But it struck a rib, and
before he could use it again, his neck snapped.

"So that I was alone on the schooner, with the two blacks, and Fetcher's
woman, and the little brown girl.

"Fetcher's woman went ashore to find him and never came back. And I
decided it was time for me to go away from that place. The pagans were
dying in me. I did not like that quiet little island any more.

"But the next morning, when I looked out beyond the lagoon, another
schooner was coming in. So I was uncomfortable with Fetcher's pearls, as
well as mine, in my pocket. There are some hard men in these seas, Joel;
and I knew none of them would treasure me above my pearls. So I planned a
story of misfortune, and I went ashore to hide my pearls under a rock.

"The blacks had brought me ashore. I went out of their sight to do what I
had to do; and when I came back, after hiding the pearls, I saw them
rowing very swiftly toward the schooner. And they looked back at me in a
fearful way. I wondered why; and then four black men came down on me from
behind, with knives and clubs.

"I had a very hard day, that day. They hunted me back and forth through
the island--I had not even a knife with me--and I met them here and
there, and suffered certain contusions and bruises and minor cuts. Also,
I grew very tired of killing them. They were wiry, but they were small,
and died easily. So I was glad, when from a point where they had cornered
me I saw the little brown girl rowing the big boat toward me.

"She was alone. The blacks were afraid to come, I thought. But I found
afterward that this was not true. They could not come; for they had tried
to seize the schooner and go quickly away from that place, an