eft it so at the moment, and had ourselves poled in the direction of
Charlie's voice, which was breaking mirror after mirror of exquisite
lagoon-like silence with demands for our return to camp. He evidently
had shot all the duck he wanted, for that day, and was beginning to be
hungry for dinner.

Yet, I mustn't be too hard on Charlie, for, as we know, even Charlie had
another object in his trip besides duck. As a certain poet brutally puts
it, he had anticipated also "the hunting of man." In addition, though it
is against the law of those Britannic islands, he had promised me a
flamingo or two for decorative purposes. However, flamingoes and Tobias
alike kept out of gunshot, and, as the week grew toward its end, Charlie
began to grow a little restive.

"It looks," he murmured one evening, as we had completed our fourteenth
meal of roast duck, and were musing over our after-duck cigars, "it
looks as if I am not going to have any use for this."

He had taken a paper from his pocket. It was a warrant with which he had
provided himself, empowering him to arrest the said Henry P. Tobias, or
the person passing under that name, on two counts: First, that of
seditious practices, with intent to spread treason among His Majesty's
subjects, and, second, that of wilful murder on the high seas. I should
say that, following my recital of the eventful cruise of the _Maggie
Darling,_ old Tom and I had been required to make sworn depositions of
Tobias's share in the happenings of that cruise, the murder of the
captain and so forth, and I too had surrendered as evidence that
eloquent manifesto which I had seen Tobias reading to the ill-fated
George and "Silly" Theodore, and had afterward discussed with him.

The probabilities were that the Government would treat Tobias's case as
that of a dangerous madman, rather than as a hanging matter, but,
whatever its point of view, it was clearly undesirable for such an
individual to remain at large. So the governing powers in Nassau, with
whom Charlie Webster was _persona grata,_ had been glad to take
advantage of his enthusiastic patriotism and invest him with
constabulary powers, hoping that he might have an opportunity of using
them. Personally, he was rather ashamed of having to employ such tame
legal methods. From his point of view, shooting at sight was all that
Tobias deserved, and to give him a trial by jury was an absurdity of
legal red-tape. In this respect he agreed with the great M