tely, 'you are likely to know soon
enough. In the meantime, please accept this.'

He opened a strong box, which appeared to contain jewellery, and offered
Logan a ring. Between two diamonds of the finest water it contained a
bizarre muddy coloured pearl. 'Never let that leave your finger,' said
Bude. 'Your life may hang on it.'

'It is a pretty talisman,' said Logan, placing the jewel on the little
finger of his right hand. 'A token of some friendly chief, I suppose, at
Cagayan--what do you call it?'

'Let us put it at that,' answered Bude; 'I must take other precautions.'

It seemed to Logan that these consisted in making similar presents to the
officers and crew, all of whom were Englishmen. Te-iki-pa displaced his
nose-ring and inserted his pearl in the orifice previously occupied by
that ornament. A little chain of the pearls was hung on the padlock of
the huge packing-case, which was the special care of Te-iki-pa.

'Luckily I had the yacht's painting altered before leaving England,' said
Bude. 'I'll sail her under Spanish colours, and perhaps they won't spot
her. Any way, with the pearls--lucky I bought a lot--we ought to be safe
enough. But if any one of the competitors has gone for specimens of the
Berbalangs, I fear, I sadly fear, the consequences.' His face clouded;
he fell into a reverie.

Logan made no reply, but puffed rings of cigarette smoke into the still
blue air. There was method in Bude's apparent madness, but Logan
suspected that there was madness in his method.

A certain coolness had not ceased to exist between the friends when,
after their long voyage, they sighted the volcanic craters of the lonely
isle of Cagayan Sulu and beheld the Stars and Stripes waving from the
masthead of the _George Washington_ (Captain Noah P. Funkal).

Logan landed, and noted the harmless but well-armed half-Mahometan
natives of the village. He saw the other competitors, whose 'exhibits,'
as Miss McCabe called them, were securely stored in the _George
Washington_--strange spoils of far-off mysterious forests, and unplumbed
waters of the remotest isles. Occasionally a barbaric yap, or a weird
yell or hoot, was wafted on the air at feeding time. Jenkins of All
Souls (whom he knew a little) Logan did not meet on the beach; he, like
Bude, tarried aboard ship. The other adventurers were civil but remote,
and there was a jealous air of suspicion on every face save that of
Professor Potter. He, during t