urned to his dusky crew. "You fella boy stop along canoe
altogether."

As he swung over the rail and stepped on deck a hint of catlike
litheness showed in the apparently heavy body. Like the other two, he
was scantily clad. The cheap undershirt and white loin-cloth did not
serve to hide the well put up body. Heavy muscled he was, but he was
not lumped and hummocked by muscles. They were softly rounded, and, when
they did move, slid softly and silkily under the smooth, tanned skin.
Ardent suns had likewise tanned his face till it was swarthy as a
Spaniard's. The yellow mustache appeared incongruous in the midst of
such swarthiness, while the clear blue of the eyes produced a feeling of
shock on the beholder. It was difficult to realize that the skin of this
man had once been fair.

"Where did you blow in from?" Griffiths asked, as they shook hands. "I
thought you were over in the Santa Cruz."

"I was," the newcomer answered. "But we made a quick passage. The
_Wonder's_ just around in the bight at Gooma, waiting for wind. Some
of the bushmen reported a ketch here, and I just dropped around to see.
Well, how goes it?"

"Nothing much. Copra sheds mostly empty, and not half a dozen tons of
ivory nuts. The women all got rotten with fever and quit, and the men
can't chase them back into the swamps. They're a sick crowd. I'd ask you
to have a drink, but the mate finished off my last bottle. I wisht to
God for a breeze of wind."

Grief, glancing with keen carelessness from one to the other, laughed.

"I'm glad the calm held," he said. "It enabled me to get around to see
you. My supercargo dug up that little note of yours, and I brought it
along."

The mate edged politely away, leaving his skipper to face his trouble.

"I'm sorry, Grief, damned sorry," Griffiths said, "but I ain't got it.
You'll have to give me a little more time."

Grief leaned up against the companionway, surprise and pain depicted on
his face.

"It does beat hell," he communed, "how men learn to lie in the Solomons.
The truth's not in them. Now take Captain Jensen. I'd sworn by his
truthfulness. Why, he told me only five days ago--do you want to know
what he told me?"

Griffiths licked his lips.

"Go on."

"Why, he told me that you'd sold out--sold out everything, cleaned up,
and was pulling out for the New Hebrides."

"He's a damned liar!" Griffiths cried hotly.

Grief nodded.

"I should say so. He even had the nerve to tell me that he'd