tiller, apparently
with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly,
and, breaking into a loud laugh, cried--"Come, Jo, you must admit that
there is at least one living man who has made you `shut up' before you
had finished what you'd got to say."

John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated
blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly
resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after
which he made the following observation:--

"Capting, I've seed, in my experience o' life, that there are some
constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em.
Now, if you'd take the advice of a plain man, you'd never try it on.
You're a grave man by natur', and you're so bad at a joke that a feller
can't quite tell w'en you're a-doin' of it. See, now, I do declare I
wos as near drivin' you right over the stern o' your own boat as could
be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your eye in time."

"Pull away, my lad," said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep
voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face.

There was something in the tone in which that simple command was given,
and in the look by which it was accompanied; that effectually quelled
John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on John,
because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and
in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in this mild way
was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look straightforward and
common enough. He could not understand it at all, and, being naturally
of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a
futile endeavour to analyse his own feelings. Before he had come to any
satisfactory conclusion on the subject, the boat's keel grated on the
white sand of the shore.

Now, while all that we have been describing in the last and present
chapters was going on, a very different series of events was taking
place on the coral-island, for there, under the pleasant shade of the
cocoa-nut palms, a tall, fair, and handsome youth was walking lightly
down the green slopes towards the shore in anticipation of the arrival
of the schooner, and a naked dark-skinned savage was dogging his steps,
winding like a hideous snake among the bushes, and apparently seeking an
opportunity to launch the short spear he carried in his hand at his
unsuspecting