om the beach. They say that if you
go 'back there in the grass' something awful will happen to you."

"As what?" I asked.

"The last man to try it," said Graves, "in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant was a woman. When they found her she was all black and
swollen--at least that's what they say. Something had bitten her just
above the ankle."

"Nonsense," I said, "there are no snakes in the whole Batengo group."

"They didn't say it was a snake," said Graves. "They said the marks of
the bite were like those that would be made by the teeth of a very
little--child."

Graves rose and stretched himself.

"What's the use of arguing with people that tell yarns like that! All
the same, if you're bent on making expeditions back into the grass,
you'll make 'em alone, unless the cable breaks and I'm free to make 'em
with you."

Five weeks later I was once more coasting along the wavering hills of
Batengo Island, with a sharp eye out for a first sight of the cable
station and Graves. Five weeks with no company but Kanakas and a
pointer dog makes one white man pretty keen for the society of another.
Furthermore, at our one meeting I had taken a great shine to Graves and
to the charming young lady who was to brave a life in the South Seas for
his sake. If I was eager to get ashore, Don was more so. I had a
shot-gun across my knees with which to salute the cable station, and the
sight of that weapon, coupled with toothsome memories of a recent big
hunt down on Forked Peak, had set the dog quivering from stem to stern,
to crouching, wagging his tail till it disappeared, and beating sudden
tattoos upon the deck with his forepaws. And when at last we rounded on
the cable station and I let off both barrels, he began to bark and race
about the schooner like a thing possessed.

The salute brought Graves out of his house. He stood on the porch waving
a handkerchief, and I called to him through a megaphone; hoped that he
was well, said how glad I was to see him, and asked him to meet me in
Batengo village.

Even at that distance I detected a something irresolute in his manner;
and a few minutes later when he had fetched a hat out of the house,
locked the door, and headed toward the village, he looked more like a
soldier marching to battle than a man walking half a mile to greet a
friend.

"That's funny," I said to Don. "He's coming to meet us in spite of the
fact that he'd much rather not. Oh, well!"

I left the schooner while