waited patiently, his keen eyes searching and his quick ear
listening; then creeping softly along on his hands and knees again, he
examined the sandy soil. In a few minutes his search was rewarded, for
he came across the footmarks of Chard and the captain, leading to the
vine-covered boulders under the shelter of which they had made their
camp. Following these up, he was soon at the place itself, and examining
the various articles lying upon the ground--provisions, clothing, the
roll of charts, sextant. Leaning against the rocky wall was a Snider
carbine. He seized it quickly, opened the breach, and saw that it was
loaded; then he made a hurried search for more cartridges, and found
nearly a dozen tied up in a handkerchief with about fifty Winchesters.
These latter he quickly buried in the sand, and then with his eyes
alight with the joy of savage expectancy of revenge, he again sought and
found the tracks of the two men, which led in the very direction from
which he had come.

To a man like Roka there was no difficulty in following the line which
Hendry and the supercargo had taken; their footsteps showed deep in the
soft, sandy soil, rendered the more impressionable by the heavy downfall
of rain a few hours before. And even had they left no traces underfoot
of their progress, the countless broken branches and vines which they
had pushed or torn aside on their way through the forest were a sure
guide to one of Nature's children, whose pursuit was quickened by
his desire for vengeance upon the murderers of his brother and his
shipmates.

Pushing his way through a dense strip of the tough, thorny scrub called
_ngiia_, he suddenly emerged into the open once more--on the weather
side of the island. First his eye ran along the sand to discover which
way the footsteps trended; they led southwards towards a low, rugged
boulder whose sides and summit were thickly clothed with a thick,
fleshy-leaved creeper. Beyond that lay the bare expanse of reef, along
which he saw Harvey Carr was walking towards the shore, unconscious of
danger. And right in his line of vision he saw Chard, who, kneeling
amid the foliage of the boulder, was covering Harvey with his rifle; in
another instant the supercargo had fired, Roka dropped on one knee and
raised his Snider carbine, just as Sam Chard turned to Hendry with a
smile upon his handsome, evil face, and waved his hand mockingly towards
the prone figure of Harvey.

"That's one more to the g