I put myself, helpless, in your hands. What must I do? If I
can't do anything, be merciful and put a bullet through me; it's only a
puppy with a broken leg!'

'If I were you, I would pick up that pistol, come up to the house, and
put on some dry clothes,' said Attwater.

'If you really mean it?' said Herrick. 'You know they--we--they. .. But
you know all.'

'I know quite enough,' said Attwater. 'Come up to the house.'

And the captain, from the deck of the Farallone, saw the two men pass
together under the shadow of the grove.

Chapter 11. DAVID AND GOLIATH

Huish had bundled himself up from the glare of the day--his face to the
house, his knees retracted. The frail bones in the thin tropical raiment
seemed scarce more considerable than a fowl's; and Davis, sitting on the
rail with his arm about a stay, contemplated him with gloom, wondering
what manner of counsel that insignificant figure should contain. For
since Herrick had thrown him off and deserted to the enemy, Huish, alone
of mankind, remained to him to be a helper and oracle.

He considered their position with a sinking heart. The ship was a stolen
ship; the stores, either from initial carelessness or ill administration
during the voyage, were insufficient to carry them to any port except
back to Papeete; and there retribution waited in the shape of a
gendarme, a judge with a queer-shaped hat, and the horror of distant
Noumea. Upon that side, there was no glimmer of hope. Here, at the
island, the dragon was roused; Attwater with his men and his Winchesters
watched and patrolled the house; let him who dare approach it. What else
was then left but to sit there, inactive, pacing the decks--until the
Trinity Hall arrived and they were cast into irons, or until the food
came to an end, and the pangs of famine succeeded? For the Trinity
Hall Davis was prepared; he would barricade the house, and die there
defending it, like a rat in a crevice. But for the other? The cruise of
the Farallone, into which he had plunged only a fortnight before, with
such golden expectations, could this be the nightmare end of it? The
ship rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying in the scuppers? It
seemed as if any extreme of hazard were to be preferred to so grisly a
certainty; as if it would be better to up-anchor after all, put to sea
at a venture, and, perhaps, perish at the hands of cannibals on one of
the more obscure Paumotus. His eye roved swiftly over sea and sk