rning again to Herrick, "Do you bear out
Mr. Whish's description of your vintage? or was it only the unaffected
poetry of his own nature bubbling up?"

Herrick was embarrassed; the silken brutality of their visitor made him
blush; that he should be accepted as an equal, and the others thus
pointedly ignored, pleased him in spite of himself, and then ran through
his veins in a recoil of anger.

"I don't know," he said. "It's only California; it's good enough, I
believe."

Attwater seemed to make up his mind. "Well, then, I'll tell you what:
you three gentlemen come ashore this evening and bring a basket of wine
with you; I'll try and find the food," he said. "And by the by, here is
a question I should have asked you when I came on board: have you had
small-pox?"

"Personally, no," said Herrick. "But the schooner had it."

"Deaths?" from Attwater.

"Two," said Herrick.

"Well, it is a dreadful sickness," said Attwater.

"'Ad you any deaths?" asked Huish, "'ere on the island?"

"Twenty-nine," said Attwater. "Twenty-nine deaths and thirty-one cases,
out of thirty-three souls upon the island.--That's a strange way to
calculate, Mr. Hay, is it not? Souls! I never say it but it startles
me."

"O, so that's why everything's deserted?" said Huish.

"That is why, Mr. Whish," said Attwater; "that is why the house is empty
and the graveyard full."

"Twenty-nine out of thirty-three!" exclaimed Herrick. "Why, when it came
to burying--or did you bother burying?"

"Scarcely," said Attwater; "or there was one day at least when we gave
up. There were five of the dead that morning, and thirteen of the dying,
and no one able to go about except the sexton and myself. We held a
council of war, took the ... empty bottles ... into the lagoon, and ...
buried them." He looked over his shoulder, back at the bright water.
"Well, so you'll come to dinner, then? Shall we say half-past six? So
good of you!"

His voice, in uttering these conventional phrases, fell at once into the
false measure of society; and Herrick unconsciously followed the
example.

"I am sure we shall be very glad," he said. "At half-past six? Thank you
so very much."

"'For my voice has been tuned to the note of the gun
That startles the deep when the combat's begun,'"

quoted Attwater, with a smile, which instantly gave way to an air of
funereal solemnity. "I shall particularly expect Mr. Whish," he
continued.--"Mr. Whish, I trust you understand t