d, more for its cheerful effect than for any other reason, for
the night was oppressively warm. At some distance from it the men were
sitting or lying in sprawling attitudes. Some were sleeping, some
singing, while one tall man, whom Drew recognized as Ditty, was engaged
in earnest conversation with two others, probably his lieutenants.

Drew counted them twice to make sure there was no mistake. There were
sixteen in all. Only one, then, had been accounted for that afternoon.
And there were but nine able-bodied men in the fort, counting Binney as
able-bodied.

Sixteen to nine! Nearly two to one! And men who would fight
desperately because in joining this mutiny they knew that they stood in
peril of the hangman's noose or the electric chair.

Drew's resolution hardened. The fire cast a wide zone of light on the
beach and the surrounding water. But over the eastern end of the
lagoon darkness hung heavily. Keeping in the shelter of the palms, he
went northward, following the contour of the lagoon until he reached
the point where vegetation ceased and the reef began.

Although this reef was volcanic (indeed the whole island had
undoubtedly been thrown up from the floor of the sea by some
subterranean convulsion in ages past), the coral insects had been at
work adding to the strength of the lagoon's barriers. The recent quake
that had lifted the reef had ground much of this coral-work to dust.
Drew found himself wading ankle deep in it as he approached the water.

The little waves lapped at his feet. There was a shimmering glow on
the surface of the lagoon, as there always is upon moving water.
Outside, the surf sighed, retreated, advanced, and again sighed, in
unchanging and ceaseless rotation.

Drew disrobed slowly. He could not see the schooner, but he knew about
where she lay. Indeed, he could hear the water slapping against her
sides and the creaking of her blocks and stays. She was not far off
the shore.

And yet he hesitated before wading in. He was a good swimmer, and the
water was warm; the actual getting to the schooner did not trouble his
mind in the least. But, as he scanned the surface of the lagoon, there
was a phosphorescent flash several fathoms out. Was it a leaping fish,
or----

His eyes had become accustomed to the semi-darkness. Drifting in was
some object--a small, three-cornered, sail-like thing. Another flash
of phosphorescence, and the triangular fin disappeared. Drew shud