nd usage of any kind. Junius Peabody looked as if
he had been run through a mangle. His dress was fragmentary. Most of the
skin had been flayed from the more prominent curves of his anatomy. His
left arm hung useless. He crawled in and propped himself to keep from
falling, and called for brandy in a voice scarcely recognizable.
"Peabody--is it?" demanded Bendemeer, incredulous.

"Will you keep a customer waiting?" rasped Junius. "You needn't stare."
He laughed weakly. "You can't order me off now, Bendemeer. I'm a paying
customer again."

"As how?"

Junius lifted a fist and dropped the sopping net on the bar.
"Ambergris--eleven pounds of it. My property."

Bendemeer inspected the brownish lump, and as he understood, his thin
lips pleated and his glance quickened. "Oh, ho!" he said. "Was it _this_
they robbed you of?"

Peabody nodded.

"You got it back from them--yourself?"

"There's the stuff."

"So I see. But I'm asking--did you take it away from those two
cutthroats alone, without any help?"

"I did. And now I've come to talk business. It's a good proposition,
Bendemeer."

The tall, grim white man studied him with a narrow regard glinting like
a probe and equally cool, detached, and impersonal. He had the air of a
surgeon who approaches a clinical experiment. "I'm inclined to think it
may be," he decided. "Yes--a sporting risk; though I'm certain enough of
the result, Peabody, mind that. I believe I might make a bit of a gamble
with myself, just to see that I'm right. Come now--what do you want?"

"A thousand silver," said Junius.

"I haven't so much about me. Suppose we say a standing credit for a
thousand drinks instead."

Junius stiffened against the bar.

"It amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?" continued Bendemeer: "Why
should you trouble about dollars--mere tokens? You can't get away from
Fufuti. The _Jane_ out there, she's due to sail this morning on a round
of my plantations. She's the only ship clearing for a month at least....
By the time you'd drunk yourself to death I'd simply have the money back
again."

* * * * *

Peabody stared, and a streak of crimson leaped into his cheek as if a
whiplash had been laid across it.

"Damn you--!" he cried shakily. "Give me that brandy--I'll pay for it.
Here's the stuff. It's mine. I went after it and I got it. I earned it
myself, and fairly!"

"To what end?" Bendemeer cut in. "So you can pickle yourself before
b