t my fingers with his, I dropped
him over the side. I saw a fiery streak in the water where I dropped him.
That shark was not so squeamish as the one I had--embraced. It may have
been the other was embarrassed at my ways, Joel. D'ye think that might
have been the way of it?"

Joel's knuckles were white, where his hand rested on his knee. Mark saw,
and laughed softly. "There's blood in you, after all, boy," he applauded.
"I've hopes for you."

Joel said slowly: "What then? What then, Mark?"

Mark laughed. "Well, that was a very funny thing," he said. "You see, the
other two men, they were busy, astern, with their own concerns. And when
I had comforted the little brown girl, and sat down on the deck to laugh
at the folly of it all, she slipped away from me, and went aft, and got
all their rifles. She brought them to me. She seemed to expect things of
me. So I, still laughing, for the fever was on me; I took the rifles and
threw them, all but one, over the side. And I went down into the cabin,
with the little brown girl, and went to bed; and she sat beside me, with
the rifle, and a lamp hanging above the door....

"And that was all that happened, until I woke one morning and saw her
there, and wondered where I was. And my head was clear again. She made me
understand that the men had sought to come at me, but had feared the
rifle in her hands....

"And we were in the open sea, as I could feel by the labor of the
schooner underfoot. So I took the rifle in the crook of my arm, and with
the little brown girl at my heel, I went up on deck. And we made a
treaty."

He fell silent for a moment, and Joel watched him, and waited. And at
last, Mark went on.

"I had been more than a month on the island," he said. "The _Nathan Ross_
had gone. This schooner was a pearler, and they had the location of a bed
of shell. They had been waiting till another schooner should leave the
place, to leave their own way clear. And when that time came, they went
ashore to get the brown women for companions on that cruise. And they
made the mistake of picking up my little brown girl, when she ran out of
the hut. And so brought me down upon them.

"There were two of them left; two whites, and three black men forward,
who were of no account. And the other two women. These other two were
chattering together, on the deck astern, when I appeared. They seemed
content enough....

"The men were not happy. There was a large man with slanting eyes. The