tepped aside to let his visitor precede
him, at the same time glancing seaward to where the dark flaw of wind
was quickening the water.

"Heave short," he told the mate. "Get up sail and stand ready to break
out."

As Grief sat down on the edge of the mate's bunk, close against and
facing the tiny table, he noticed the butt of a revolver just projecting
from under the pillow. On the table, which hung on hinges from the
for'ard bulkhead, were pen and ink, also a battered log-book.

"Oh, I don't mind being caught in a dirty trick," Griffiths was saying
defiantly. "I've been in the tropics too long. I'm a sick man, a damn
sick man. And the whiskey, and the sun, and the fever have made me sick
in morals, too. Nothing's too mean and low for me now, and I can
understand why the niggers eat each other, and take heads, and such
things. I could do it myself. So I call trying to do you out of that
small account a pretty mild trick. Wisht I could offer you a drink."

Grief made no reply, and the other busied himself in attempting to
unlock a large and much-dented cash-box. From on deck came falsetto
cries and the creak and rattle of blocks as the black crew swung up
mainsail and driver. Grief watched a large cockroach crawling over the
greasy paintwork. Griffiths, with an oath of irritation, carried the
cash-box to the companion-steps for better light. Here, on his feet, and
bending over the box, his back to his visitor, his hands shot out to
the rifle that stood beside the steps, and at the same moment he whirled
about.

"Now don't you move a muscle," he commanded.

Grief smiled, elevated his eyebrows quizzically, and obeyed. His left
hand rested on the bunk beside him; his right hand lay on the table.

His revolver hung on his right hip in plain sight. But in his mind was
recollection of the other revolver under the pillow.

"Huh!" Griffiths sneered. "You've got everybody in the Solomons
hypnotized, but let me tell you you ain't got me. Now I'm going to throw
you off my vessel, along with your admiralty warrant, but first you've
got to do something. Lift up that log-book."

The other glanced curiously at the log-book, but did not move.

"I tell you I'm a sick man, Grief; and I'd as soon shoot you as smash a
cockroach. Lift up that log-book, I say."

Sick he did look, his lean face working nervously with the rage that
possessed him. Grief lifted the book and set it aside. Beneath lay a
written sheet of tablet paper.