gh phases all
the way from irony to exasperation. After a while he gave it up and took
to singing.

There was a moon, and I suppose he thought he had a voice. It didn't
strike me so. After several somewhat melancholy songs, he let off his
pistol two or three times and then subsided into silence.

I didn't care; neither his songs nor his shots interrupted--but let that
pass, also.

We were now sailing into the forest through pool after pool of
interminable lagoons, startling into unseen and clattering flight
hundreds of waterfowl. I could feel the wind from their whistling
wings in the darkness, as they drove by us out to sea. It seemed to
startle the pretty waitress. It is a solemn thing to be responsible for
a pretty girl's peace of mind. I reassured her continually, perhaps a
trifle nervously. But there were no more pistol shots. Perhaps Kemper had
used up his cartridges.

We were still drifting along under drooping sails, borne inland almost
entirely by the tide, when the first pale, watery, gray light streaked
the east. When it grew a little lighter, Evelyn sat up; all danger of
sharks being over. Also, I could begin to see what was going on in the
other boat. Which was nothing remarkable; Kemper slumped against the
mast, his head turned in our direction; Grue sat at the helm, motionless,
his tattered straw hat sagging on his neck.

When the sun rose, I called out cheerily to Kemper, asking him how he had
passed the night. Evelyn also raised her head, pausing while bringing her
disordered hair under discipline, to listen to his reply.

But he merely mumbled something. Perhaps he was still sleepy.

As for me, I felt exceedingly well; and when Grue turned his craft in
shore, I did so, too; and when, under the overhanging foliage of the
forest, the nose of my boat grated on the sand, I rose and crossed the
deck with a step distinctly frolicsome.

Kemper seemed distant and glum; Evelyn Grey spoke to him shyly now and
then, and I noticed she looked at him only when he was gazing elsewhere
than at her. She had a funny, conciliatory air with him, half ashamed,
partly humorous and amused, as though something about Kemper's sulky
ill-humour was continually making tiny inroads on her gravity.

Some mullet had jumped into the two boats--half a dozen during our
moonlight voyage--and these were now being fried with rice for us by
Grue. Lord! How I hated to eat them!

After we had finished breakfast, Grue, as usual, d