was poured forth, inarticulate
as himself, earnest as death and judgment.

'Thou Gawd seest me!' continued Huish. 'I remember I had that written
in my Bible. I remember the Bible too, all about Abinadab and parties.
Well, Gawd!' apostrophising the meridian, 'you're goin' to see a rum
start presently, I promise you that!'

The captain bounded.

'I'll have no blasphemy!' he cried, 'no blasphemy in my boat.'

'All right, cap,' said Huish. 'Anythink to oblige. Any other topic you
would like to sudgest, the rynegyge, the lightnin' rod, Shykespeare, or
the musical glasses? 'Ere's conversation on a tap. Put a penny in the
slot, and... 'ullo! 'ere they are!' he cried. 'Now or never is 'e goin'
to shoot?'

And the little man straightened himself into an alert and dashing
attitude, and looked steadily at the enemy. But the captain rose half up
in the boat with eyes protruding.

'What's that?' he cried.

'Wot's wot?' said Huish.

'Those--blamed things,' said the captain.

And indeed it was something strange. Herrick and Attwater, both armed
with Winchesters, had appeared out of the grove behind the figure-head;
and to either hand of them, the sun glistened upon two metallic objects,
locomotory like men, and occupying in the economy of these creatures the
places of heads--only the heads were faceless. To Davis between wind
and water, his mythology appeared to have come alive, and Tophet to be
vomiting demons. But Huish was not mystified a moment.

'Divers' 'elmets, you ninny. Can't you see?' he said.

'So they are,' said Davis, with a gasp. 'And why? Oh, I see, it's for
armour.'

'Wot did I tell you?' said Huish. 'Dyvid and Goliar all the w'y and
back.'

The two natives (for they it was that were equipped in this unusual
panoply of war) spread out to right and left, and at last lay down
in the shade, on the extreme flank of the position. Even now that the
mystery was explained, Davis was hatefully preoccupied, stared at the
flame on their crests, and forgot, and then remembered with a smile, the
explanation.

Attwater withdrew again into the grove, and Herrick, with his gun under
his arm, came down the pier alone.

About half-way down he halted and hailed the boat.

'What do you want?' he cried.

'I'll tell that to Mr Attwater,' replied Huish, stepping briskly on the
ladder. 'I don't tell it to you, because you played the trucklin' sneak.
Here's a letter for him: tyke it, and give it, and be 'anged to you!'