be sold and turned over
to a government, to a syndicate, to develop it! Man! you and Hales
had a million safe between you when you boarded the schooner; and I
can see Hales's mind at work when he spotted your boat and sized up
the share he was losing by your turning up. The marvel to me is, he
didn't turn you a blind eye. But Hales is a humane man. He did time
in his youth, but he's not the sort that you are, Foe--the sort that
could leave a man to die solitary and forsaken. Belike, too, the
prize was so great in his grasp that he didn't care how much, in
reason, might run through his fingers.

"--Listen! When you sighted him, he had made a careful offing of the
southern reefs, and had hauled up close to his wind. Where do you
suppose he was bound? He was fetching up to beat back to Valparaiso.
Being Yankee born and not a stocking-banker like old Buck Vliet, he
was all for Valparaiso with an island to sell to the Chilian
Government, and a concession and a syndicate fair in view. This
cargo of beads, cheap guns, sham jewellery, canned meats, and rum,
that he had aboard for the islands, would keep: the rum would even be
improved by a little Christian delay. But, if he sank it all, all
was nothing to the secret he carried.

"--And then you hove on his view, for partner: and he took you in.
. . . I hope you'll remember him gratefully after this, Foe.
He chose to sight you--and he hadn't heard the dog. If he had, it
wasn't in him to guess that you had left any better than a dog
behind.

"--Then you fairly flummoxed him. Missionary though you were, he'd
accepted you as prospective shareholder. It wasn't for him to guess
that you dared not go back.

"--He's told me that, accepting you, for a day and a half he held on
his course, close-hauled. Is that so? But he was suspicious, as
deaf men are. He took a notion that you--you, keeping mum as a cat,
having to pass for somebody else and avoid questions--were just lying
low, meaning to slip cable at Valparaiso and hurry in with a prior
claim. I am sorry to say it, Foe: but altogether you did not create
good impression on board the _I'll Away_. To the crew you were an
object of dark suspicion. To the skipper you were either a close
knave, meaning to trick him, or an incredible idiot. After a while,
and almost against hope, he determined to try you for an idiot.
He ordered his helm up, and watched you. You did not protest.
He put his helm farther and far