I had to kill him," I heard Charlie's deep growl. "I meant
to keep him for the hangman."

But suddenly I saw him start forward and stamp heavily on something.

"No, you don't," I heard him roar--and I learned afterward that Tobias,
though mortally wounded, was not yet dead, and that, as the two had
stood looking down on him, they had seen his hand furtively moving
toward the fallen revolver that lay a few inches from him on the deck.
Just as he had grasped it, Charlie's heavy boot had come down on his
wrist. But Tobias was still game.

"Not alive, you English brute!" he was heard to groan out, and,
snatching free his wrist too swiftly to be prevented, he had gathered up
all his remaining strength, and hurled himself over the side into the
sea.

I was but a dozen yards away from him, as he fell; and, as he rose
again, it was for his dying eyes to fix with a glare upon me. They
dilated with terror, as though he had seen a ghost. Then he gave one
strange scream, and fell back into the sea, and we saw him no more.

* * * * *

It will be easier for the reader to imagine, than for me to describe,
the look on the faces of Calypso and Charlie Webster when they saw me
appear at almost the same spot where poor Tobias had just gone bubbling
down. Words I had none, for I was at the end of my strength, and I broke
down and sobbed like a child.

"Thank God you are safe--my treasure, my treasure!" was all I could say,
after they had lifted me aboard, and I lay face down on the deck, at her
feet. Swiftly she knelt by my side, and caressed my shoulder with her
dear hand.

All of which--particularly my reference to "my treasure"--must have been
much to the bewilderment of the good simple-hearted Charlie, towering,
innocent-eyed, above us. I believe I stayed a little longer at her feet
than I really had need to, for the comfort of her being so near and
kind; but, presently, we were all aroused by a voice from the cliffs
above. It was the "King," with his bodyguard, Erebus and the crew of the
_Flamingo_--no Samson, alas! The sound of the firing had reached them in
the woods, and they had come hurrying to discover its cause.

So we deferred asking our questions, and telling our several stories,
till we were pulled ashore.

As Calypso was folded in her father's arms, he turned to me:

"Didn't I tell you that I knew my daughter?" he said.

"And I told you something too, O King," I replied--my eyes