den from him by the planking of the jetty. His eyes
fell on the thin back of a man doubled up over the tiller in a queer,
uncomfortable attitude of drooping sorrow. Another man, more directly
below Heyst, sprawled on his back from gunwale to gunwale, half off
the after thwart, his head lower than his feet. This second man glared
wildly upward, and struggled to raise himself, but to all appearance was
much too drunk to succeed. The visible part of the boat contained also
a flat, leather trunk, on which the first man's long legs were tucked
up nervelessly. A large earthenware jug, with its wide mouth uncorked,
rolled out on the bottom-boards from under the sprawling man.

Heyst had never been so much astonished in his life. He stared dumbly at
the strange boat's crew. From the first he was positive that these
men were not sailors. They wore the white drill-suit of tropical
civilization; but their apparition in a boat Heyst could not connect
with anything plausible. The civilization of the tropics could have
had nothing to do with it. It was more like those myths, current in
Polynesia, of amazing strangers, who arrive at an island, gods or
demons, bringing good or evil to the innocence of the inhabitants--gifts
of unknown things, words never heard before.

Heyst noticed a cork helmet floating alongside the boat, evidently
fallen from the head of the man doubled over the tiller, who displayed
a dark, bony poll. An oar, too, had been knocked overboard, probably
by the sprawling man, who was still struggling, between the thwarts.
By this time Heyst regarded the visitation no longer with surprise, but
with the sustained attention demanded by a difficult problem. With one
foot poised on the string-piece, and leaning on his raised knee, he
was taking in everything. The sprawling man rolled off the thwart,
collapsed, and, most unexpectedly, got on his feet. He swayed dizzily,
spreading his arms out and uttered faintly a hoarse, dreamy "Hallo!" His
upturned face was swollen, red, peeling all over the nose and cheeks.
His stare was irrational. Heyst perceived stains of dried blood all over
the front of his dirty white coat, and also on one sleeve.

"What's the matter? Are you wounded?"

The other glanced down, reeled--one of his feet was inside a large pith
hat--and, recovering himself, let out a dismal, grating sound in the
manner of a grim laugh.

"Blood--not mine. Thirst's the matter. Exhausted's the matter. Done up.
Drink,