with money. I know for a fact he
sold his Yringa plantations for three hundred thousand pounds. Bell
told me so himself last time we were drunk at Guvutu. Worth millions and
millions, and Shylocking me for what he wouldn't light his pipe with."
He whirled on the mate. "Of course you told me so. Go on and say it, and
keep on saying it. Now just what was it you did tell me so?"

"I told you you didn't know him, if you thought you could clear the
Solomons without paying him. That man Grief is a devil, but he's
straight. I know. I told you he'd throw a thousand quid away for the fun
of it, and for sixpence fight like a shark for a rusty tin, I tell you I
know. Didn't he give his _Balakula_ to the Queensland Mission when they
lost their _Evening Star_ on San Cristobal?--and the _Balakula_ worth
three thousand pounds if she was worth a penny? And didn't he beat up
Strothers till he lay abed a fortnight, all because of a difference of
two pound ten in the account, and because Strothers got fresh and tried
to make the gouge go through?"

"God strike me blind!" Griffiths cried in im-potency of rage.

The mate went on with his exposition.

"I tell you only a straight man can buck a straight man like him, and
the man's never hit the Solomons that could do it. Men like you and me
can't buck him. We're too rotten, too rotten all the way through. You've
got plenty more than twelve hundred quid below. Pay him, and get it over
with."

But Griffiths gritted his teeth and drew his thin lips tightly across
them.

"I'll buck him," he muttered--more to himself and the brazen ball of sun
than to the mate. He turned and half started to go below, then turned
back again. "Look here, Jacob-sen. He won't be here for quarter of an
hour. Are you with me? Will you stand by me?"

"Of course I'll stand by you. I've drunk all your whiskey, haven't I?
What are you going to do?"

"I'm not going to kill him if I can help it. But I'm not going to pay.
Take that flat."

Jacobsen shrugged his shoulders in calm acquiescence to fate, and
Griffiths stepped to the companionway and went below.

II

Jacobsen watched the canoe across the low reef as it came abreast and
passed on to the entrance of the passage. Griffiths, with ink-marks on
right thumb and forefinger, returned on deck Fifteen minutes later the
canoe came alongside. The man with the sombrero stood up.

"Hello, Griffiths!" he said. "Hello, Jacobsen!" With his hand on the
rail he t