upon the
shingle. It seemed to me that I knew his voice. "Here, pass down
the blamed thing . . . d--n it all, man!"

"_I can't!_" whimpered the other. "S'help me, Bill, I can't. . . .
I'm not used to it, and I ain't got the nerve."

"Nerve? An' you call yourself a seaman! An' a plucky lot you
boasted the night we signed articles. . . . Nerve? Why, you was the
very man to find fault with him. 'Couldn't stand his temper another
day,' you said; and must do something desprit. Those were your very
words."

"I know it. I didn't think--"

"Oh, to hell with your 'didn't think'! The man's dead, an' cryin'
won't bring him back. Much you'd welcome him, if he _did_ come
back!"

"_Don't_, Bill!"

"Now, look you here, Jim Lucky! Stand you up, and help me get this
lot in the boat, and the boat to sea. After that you can lie quiet
and cry yourself sick. . . . You'll be all right to-morrow, fit as a
fiddle. I've been in this business before, and seen how it takes
men, even the strongest. It's the sight o' blood; but the stomach
gets accustomed. . . . By this day week you'll be lively as a flea in
a rug, and lookin' forward to drivin' in your carriage-an'-pair.
I promise you that; but what you've to do at this moment is to stand
up, and help me get down the boat. For if _he's_ anywhere on this
island, God help the pair of us!"

"_He!_" quavered Jim Lucky.

"I shouldn't wonder."

"But you told me he was dead!"

"Did I? Well, perhaps I did. That was to keep your spirits up.
But now I don't mind tellin' you that I'm not sure. He _ought_ to
be dead by this time; but 'tis a question if the likes of him ever
die. He's own cousin to the devil, I tell you; and if he's anywhere
alive, like as not he's watching us at this moment."

Whatever this meant, it appeared to rouse Jim Lucky, and start him in
a panic. I heard him sob as he helped to lower their burden upon the
beach. All this time they had been standing immediately beneath me,
and I dared not lift my head for a look. But now, as they went
staggering down the beach, I parted the creepers, and stared in their
wake. They carried a heavy sea-chest between them, but my eyes were
neither for the chest nor for Jim Lucky, but for his companion, the
man he called Bill.

I knew him before I looked; and as I had recognized his voice, so now
I recognized his narrow, foxy head, and sloping shoulders.

It was Aaron Glass.

The two men carried the chest along