ptly from the direction he was moving in at
the time we caught up with him, and that Holman's bullet had caused him
serious inconvenience. The two girls and the Professor were in charge of
Soma and the one-eyed white man, who, we now learned, was deaf and
dumb. It was while One Eye was on guard that Barbara Herndon had been
able to bribe the Raretongan to throw the strength of his muscles upon
our side of the argument.

Holman, with lover-like longing for anything owned by the lady of his
choice, attempted to put the emerald ring in his pocket, but Maru
objected strongly. The smile fled from his face, and his broken English
nearly strangled him in his efforts to pour out enough of it to acquaint
Holman of the nature of the agreement which he had entered into with
Barbara Herndon.

"Me only show you ring, that's all!" he cried. "You look, know little
missee send me, ring mine all time. You give back."

"You had better give it back to him," I cautioned. "He has got the idea
into his head, and it will take a lot of arguing to convince him that
Miss Barbara didn't give it to him to keep."

"But she didn't!" cried Holman. "Why would she give him a ring? She just
gave him a loan of it to let him see that she had sent him to us."

"My ring all time," protested Maru. "That my pay fight mighty good for
you."

"Give it up to him," I advised. "He's only an overgrown child, and he
has set his mind on it."

"But, Verslun, I know she wouldn't do that!" protested the lover.
"Barbara sent me this as----"

"Oh, I know," I cried, "but we want fighters now, and Maru is a pretty
athletic person."

"Me damn good fighter!" cried the Raretongan. "Me plentee good fighter
if me get ring."

Holman gave up the trinket with a snort of disgust, and a few minutes
afterward, when we were tramping along, I made it my business to drop
back beside Maru and advise him to keep the ring out of the youngster's
sight till we had rescued Miss Barbara. If the native had displayed his
reward it was highly probable that the lovesick Holman, with nerves on
the raw edge from want of sleep and worry, would have pounced upon the
mighty Maru and endeavoured to obtain possession of what he fondly
thought was a token of affection from his beloved.

But the arrival of the messenger was worth more than the emerald ring to
us at that moment. He had more woodcraft than Kaipi, who had spent most
of his time upon the ocean, and his information regarding the dir