ring off the trail, they lay part of the next day and
night amid some tussocks of salt grass, blown on by the cold sea-breeze;
chilled, but securely hidden from sight. Indeed, thanks to some
mysterious power they had of utter immobility, it was wonderful how they
could efface themselves, through quiet and the simplest environment. The
lee side of a straggling vine in the meadow, or even the thin ridge
of cast-up drift on the shore, behind which they would lie for hours
motionless, was a sufficient barrier against prying eyes. In this
occupation they no longer talked together, but followed each other with
the blind instinct of animals--yet always unerringly, as if conscious
of each other's plans. Strangely enough, it was the REAL animal
alone--their nameless dog--who now betrayed impatience and a certain
human infirmity of temper. The concealment they were resigned to, the
sufferings they mutely accepted, he alone resented! When certain scents
or sounds, imperceptible to their senses, were blown across their
path, he would, with bristling back, snarl himself into guttural and
strangulated fury. Yet, in their apathy, even this would have passed
them unnoticed, but that on the second night he disappeared suddenly,
returning after two hours' absence with bloody jaws--replete, but still
slinking and snappish. It was only in the morning that, creeping on
their hands and knees through the stubble, they came upon the torn and
mangled carcass of a sheep. The two men looked at each other without
speaking--they knew what this act of rapine meant to themselves. It
meant a fresh hue and cry after them--it meant that their starving
companion had helped to draw the net closer round them. The Indian
grunted, Li Tee smiled vacantly; but with their knives and fingers they
finished what the dog had begun, and became equally culpable. But that
they were heathens, they could not have achieved a delicate ethical
responsibility in a more Christian-like way.

Yet the rice-fed Li Tee suffered most in their privations. His habitual
apathy increased with a certain physical lethargy which Jim could not
understand. When they were apart he sometimes found Li Tee stretched
on his back with an odd stare in his eyes, and once, at a distance, he
thought he saw a vague thin vapor drift from where the Chinese boy was
lying and vanish as he approached. When he tried to arouse him there
was a weak drawl in his voice and a drug-like odor in his breath. Jim
d