long enough to buy
rum at the little store near the landing, and had been off again through
the bight, sailing west. He might have been making for Cuba or for a
hiding-place--of which there were plenty on the western shore of the
island itself. Father Serapion, who knew Charlie Webster's shooting
ground, promised to send a swift messenger, should anything further of
interest to us come to his knowledge within the next week or so. As he
was, naturally, in close touch with the natives, this was not unlikely.

And then we had to bid the good priest farewell--not without a reverent
hush in our hearts as we pondered on the marvel of noble lives thus
unselfishly devoted, and as we thought, too, of the loneliness that
would once more close around him when we were gone.

It was not until we had left him that I suddenly recalled King Coffee's
first vision. Clearly, Father Serapion was the man in overalls shingling
the roof! If only his other visions should prove as true!

Then we sailed away from Behring's Point, due west through the North
Bight. But we had spent too much time with the good Father, and in
various pottering about--making another landing at a lone cabin in
search of fresh vegetables and further loading up our much-enduring
craft with three flat-bottomed skiffs, for duck-shooting, marvellously
lashed to the sides of the cabin deck--to do much more sailing that day.
So at sunset we dropped anchor under the lee of Big Wood Cay, and, long
before the moon rose, the whole boat's crew was wondrously asleep.

Morning found us sailing through a maze of low-lying desert islands of a
bewildering sameness of shape and size, with practically nothing to
distinguish one from another. Even with long experience of them, one is
liable to go astray; indeed Charlie and the captain had several
friendly disputes, and exchanged bets, as to which was which. Then, too,
the curious milky colour of the water (in strange contrast to the
jewel-like clearness of the outer sea) makes it hard to keep clear of
the coral shoals that shelve out capriciously from every island. In the
daylight, the deeper water is seen in a bluish track (something like the
"bluing" used in laundry work), edged on either side by "the white
water." One has to keep a sharp lookout every foot of the way, and many
a time our keel gave an ominous grating, and we escaped some nasty
ledges by the mere mercy of Heaven.

We had tried bathing at sunrise, but the water was n