me and the post I was
tied to all over the lot. A fragment of the shell appears to have
taken away part of my ear, but I guess I'll recover. We're pretty
well shook up, Mac, old socks, and a jolt of whisky would be in
order after you've put the irons on these two cannibals."

"You're two nice bloody-lookin' villains, ain't you?" was
McGuffey's comment, as he surveyed the late arrivals.

"Which two do you mean?" inquired Mr. Gibney, with a touch of
asperity in his tones.

"I dunno," replied McGuffey. "It's pretty hard to distinguish
between niggers and folks that goes to work an' eats with 'em."

"Mac," said Captain Scraggs severely, "you're prejudiced."

CHAPTER XXV

At 6:30 o'clock of the morning of the day following the frightful
experience of Commodore Gibney and Captain Scraggs with the
cannibals of Kandavu, the members of the _Maggie II_ Syndicate
faced each other across the breakfast table with appetites in no
wise diminished by the exciting events of the preceding day.
Captain Scraggs appeared with a lump on the back of his head as
big as a goose egg. The doughty commodore had a cut over his
right eye, and the top of his sinful head was so sore, where the
earthenware pot had struck him, that even the simple operation of
winking his bloodshot eyes was productive of pain. About a
teaspoonful of Kandavu real estate had also been blown into Mr.
Gibney's classic features when the shells from the Maxim-Vickers
gun exploded in his immediate neighbourhood, and as he naively
remarked to Bartholomew McGuffey, he was in luck to be alive.

McGuffey surveyed his superior officers, cursed them bitterly,
and remarked, with tears of joy in his honest eyes, that both
gentlemen had evaded their just deserts when they escaped with
their lives. "If it hadn't been for the mate," said McGuffey
severely, "I'd 'a' let you two boobies suffer the penalty for
your foolishness. Any man that goes to work and fraternizes with
a cannibal ain't got no kick comin' if he's made up into chicken
curry with rice. The minute I hear old Scraggsy yippin' for help,
says I to myself, 'let the beggars fight their own way out of the
mess.' But the mate comes a-runnin' up and says he's pretty sure
he can come near plantin' a mess of shells in the centre of the
disturbance, even if we can't see the wari on account of the
jungle. 'It's all off with the commodore and the skipper anyhow,'
says the mate, 'so we might just as well have vengeanc