i, the blatantly obvious proprietor of
the island's industry and overlord of its destinies--sitting there
before me now with a pump gun touching his elbow--was this fellow
Signet.

Till now I don't know precisely what had happened; that is to say, none
of the details of the act, horrid or heroic as they may have been. All I
seemed to have was a memory of the Dutchman's voice: "Why do you not
kill _me_? Ha-ha-ha! Then you could take my property." And again an echo
of his disdainful laughter at that fool, "Ha-ha-ha!" as, on some
midnight, he had kicked his dinner guest and his "coolie cotton pants"
out into the rain.--Why not, indeed? But who now was the "fool?"

Signet, in the course of the afternoon, brought forth gravely a bill of
sale, making over in an orderly fashion to B.R. Signet, New York,
U.S.A., the real and personal property of the trading station at Taai,
and "signed" in the identical, upright, Fourteenth Street grammar-school
script, by "the Dutchman."--I understood Signet. Signet understood me.
The thing was not even an attempt at forgery. It was something solely
formal--as much as to say: "This is understood to be the basis of our
mutual dealings. You will see I am owner of this place."

As for the Dutchman:

"Oh, the Dutchman? Well, he decided to go away. Go home."

Before the incalculable sang-froid of this rail bird, movie usher, alley
dodger, and hanger-on at dancing academies, I could not so much as
summon up the cheek to ask what he had done with the body. You'll say I
ought to have acted; that I ought at least to have got up and left him.
That shows two things--first, that you've never been a trader in the
islands; second, that you cannot at all comprehend how--well, how
_stunning_ he was. Sitting there, a single fortnight removed from cotton
pants and the beach, crime-stained, imperturbable, magnificent! Spawn of
the White Lights! Emperor of an island! How's that?

"It's a rich island," he impressed upon me with an intention I was yet
to plumb. "Dole," he exclaimed, "it's a gold mine!"

"Is--is _she_ here?" I ventured to demand at last.

"_Is_ she? Say! Come and have a look."

I was between laughing and wincing at that "have a look."

Going up the garden, Signet let me know that the woman was in love with
him. I might believe it or not. She would do anything for him.

"_Anything!_" he exclaimed, standing squarely still in the path. And in
his eyes I was somehow relieved to find a trace