distress the argument
was not forgotten. There was never a ship more ardently perquested; no
stone was left unturned, and no expedient untried; day after day of
growing despair, we punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the
men with promises and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat
face to face in the narrow cabin, racking our minds for some neglected
possibility of search. I could stake my salvation on the certainty of
the result: in all that ship there was nothing left of value but the
timber and the copper nails. So that our case was lamentably plain; we
had paid fifty thousand dollars, borne the charges of the schooner, and
paid fancy interest on money; and if things went well with us, we might
realise fifteen per cent, of the first outlay. We were not merely
bankrupt, we were comic bankrupts--a fair butt for jeering in the
streets. I hope I bore the blow with a good countenance; indeed, my mind
had long been quite made up, and since the day we found the opium I had
known the result. But the thought of Jim and Mamie ached in me like a
physical pain, and I shrank from speech and companionship.

I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we should
land upon the island. I saw he had something to say, and only feared it
might be consolation, for I could just bear my grief, not bungling
sympathy; and yet I had no choice but to accede to his proposal.

We walked a while along the beach in silence. The sun overhead
reverberated rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring lagoon,
tortured our eyes; and the birds and the boom of the far-away breakers
made a savage symphony.

"I don't require to tell you the game's up?" Nares asked.

"No," said I.

"I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow," he pursued.

"The best thing you can do," said I.

"Shall we say Honolulu?" he inquired.

"O, yes; let's stick to the programme," I cried. "Honolulu be it!"

There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.

"We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd," he resumed.
"We've been going through the kind of thing that tries a man. We've had
the hardest kind of work, we've been badly backed, and now we're badly
beaten. And we've fetched through without a word of disagreement. I
don't say this to praise myself: it's my trade; it's what I'm paid for,
and trained for, and brought up to. But it was another thing for you; it
was all new to you; and it did me good to see you stan