s two hundred feet away. This was the deadline. Rapa
sailors, armed with rifles, maintained it. But one canoe at a time was
permitted alongside, and but one black at a time was permitted to come
over the rail. Here, under the awning, relieving one another in hourly
shifts, the four white men carried on the trade. The rate of exchange
was that established by Pankburn with One-Eye. Five sovereigns fetched
a stick of tobacco; a hundred sovereigns, twenty sticks. Thus, a
crafty-eyed cannibal would deposit on the table a thousand dollars in
gold, and go back over the rail, hugely-satisfied, with forty cents'
worth of tobacco in his hand.

"Hope we've got enough tobacco to hold out," Carlsen muttered dubiously,
as another case was sawed in half.

Albright laughed.

"We've got fifty cases below," he said, "and as I figure it, three cases
buy a hundred thousand dollars. There was only a million dollars buried,
so thirty cases ought to get it. Though, of course, we've got to allow
a margin for the silver and the pennies. That Ecuadoran bunch must have
salted down all the coin in sight."

Very few pennies and shillings appeared, though Pankburn continually and
anxiously inquired for them. Pennies were the one thing he seemed to
desire, and he made his eyes flash covetously whenever one was produced.
True to his theory, the savages concluded that the gold, being of slight
value, must be disposed of first. A penny, worth fifty times as much as
a sovereign, was something to retain and treasure. Doubtless, in their
jungle-lairs, the wise old gray-beards put their heads together and
agreed to raise the price on pennies when the worthless gold was all
worked off. Who could tell? Mayhap the strange white men could be made
to give even twenty sticks for a priceless copper.

By the end of the week the trade went slack. There was only the
slightest dribble of gold. An occasional penny was reluctantly disposed
of for ten sticks, while several thousand dollars in silver came in.

On the morning of the eighth day no trading was done. The gray-beards
had matured their plan and were demanding twenty sticks for a penny,
One-Eye delivered the new rate of exchange. The white men appeared to
take it with great seriousness, for they stood together debating in low
voices. Had One-Eye understood English he would have been enlightened.

"We've got just a little over eight hundred thousand, not counting the
silver," Grief said. "And that's about