ction of a common grudge. The white trampled the black with or
without cause, and that was natural. And the black crept away into his
place with his hurts and his wrongs and made no sign and struck no blow.
And that was natural too.

The sun declined into a blazing furnace whereof the gates stood wide,
and they prayed to hasten it and cursed because it hung enchanted. But
when it was gone their blistered bodies still held the heat like things
incandescent. The night closed down over them like a purple bowl, glazed
and impermeable. They would have divided the watches again, though none
of them thought of sleep, but Fenayrou made a discovery.

"Idiots!" he rasped. "Why should we look and look? A whole navy of ships
cannot help us now. If we are becalmed, why so are they!"

The Parrot was singularly put out.

"Is this true?" he asked Dubosc.

"Yes, we must hope for a breeze first."

"Then, name of God, why didn't you tell us so? Why did you keep on
playing out the farce?"

He pondered it for a time. "See here," he said. "You are wise, eh? You
are very wise. You know things we do not and you keep them to yourself."
He leaned forward to peer into the doctor's face. "Very good. But if you
think you're going to use that cursed smartness to get the best of us in
any way--see here, my zig, I pull your gullet out like the string of an
orange.... Like that. What?"

Fenayrou gave a nervous giggle and Dubosc shrugged, but it was perhaps
about this time that he began to regret his intervention in the knife
play.

For there was no breeze and there was no ship.

By the third morning each had sunk within himself, away from the rest.
The doctor was lost in a profound depression, Perroquet in dark
suspicion, and Fenayrou in bodily suffering, which he supported ill.
Only two effective ties still bound their confederacy. One was the flask
which Dubosc had slung at his side by a strip of the wickerwork. Every
move he made with it, every drop he poured, was followed by burning
eyes. And he knew and he had no advantage of them in knowing that the
will to live was working its relentless formula aboard that raft. Under
his careful saving there still remained nearly half of their original
store.

The other bond, as it had come to be by strange mutation, was the
presence of the black Canaque.

* * * * *

There was no forgetting the fourth man now, no overlooking of him. He
loomed upon their conscious