hard all the way through, and
clean all the way through, as that chain is. And some day, Mister David
Grief, somewhere, somehow, I'm going to be in such shape that I'll lick
you as you licked me. I'm going to pulp your face till your own niggers
won't know you."

Grief was jubilant.

"Now you're talking like a man," he cried. "The only way you'll ever
lick me is to become a man. And then, maybe--"

He paused in the hope that the other would catch the suggestion.
Aloysius groped for it, and, abruptly, something akin to illumination
shone in his eyes.

"And then I won't want to, you mean?"

Grief nodded.

"And that's the curse of it," Aloysius lamented. "I really believe I
won't want to. I see the point. But I'm going to go right on and shape
myself up just the same."

The warm, sunburn glow in Grief's face seemed to grow warmer. His hand
went out.

"Pankburn, I love you right now for that."

Aloysius grasped the hand, and shook his head in sad sincerity.

"Grief," he mourned, "you've got my goat, you've got my proud goat, and
you've got it permanently, I'm afraid."

VI

On a sultry tropic day, when the last flicker of the far southeast trade
was fading out and the seasonal change for the northwest monsoon was
coming on, the _Kittiwake_ lifted above the sea-rim the jungle-clad
coast of Francis Island.

Grief, with compass bearings and binoculars, identified the volcano that
marked Redscar, ran past Owen Bay, and lost the last of the breeze at
the entrance to Likikili Bay. With the two whaleboats out and towing,
and with Carl-sen heaving the lead, the _Kittiwake_ sluggishly entered a
deep and narrow indentation. There were no beaches. The mangroves began
at the water's edge, and behind them rose steep jungle, broken here and
there by jagged peaks of rock. At the end of a mile, when the white scar
on the bluff bore west-southwest, the lead vindicated the "Directory,"
and the anchor rumbled down in nine fathoms.

For the rest of that day and until the afternoon of the day following
they remained on the _Kittiwake_ and waited. No canoes appeared. There
were no signs of human life. Save for the occasional splash of a fish or
the screaming of cockatoos, there seemed no other life. Once, however, a
huge butterfly, twelve inches from tip to tip, fluttered high over their
mastheads and drifted across to the opposing jungle.

"There's no use in sending a boat in to be cut up," Grief said.

Pankburn was