e blacks. They'd obey us then, and we should be all right.
Why, we're not going to be afraid of one man."

"One man?" said the doctor.

"Yes, one man. He's only one man when he's alone. I felt yesterday
that we had twenty-one enemies. Now I feel that we've only one. Bob
says we must wait."

"Yes, it is good advice," replied the doctor, "and we will wait. Carey,
my lad, we must bend to circumstances till our chance comes. There, I
have been behaving in a poor, cowardly way."

"Oh, nonsense, sir!"

"I have, Carey, and there is no disguising it; but I am going to pluck
up now. Let the scoundrel go on thinking we are submitting and are as
much his servant as the blacks are."

"Till the right time comes, sir, and he wakes up to the fact that he's
our prisoner. I say, if a ship came in sight and saw us we could hand
him over and he'd be taken right off and treated as a criminal."

"Exactly. It seemed very galling to see him seize the pearls."

"Yes," said Carey, "but let him think they're his, and the ship, and all
below. We know better."

This was a trifling bit of conversation, but from that hour hope grew
stronger in the breasts of the three oddly made prisoners and slaves of
such a king. Their semi-captivity seemed more bearable, and it showed
in their looks and actions, the beachcomber noting it and showing a grim
kind of satisfaction.

"That's right," he said. "Glad to see you are all settling down and
making the best of it. It's no use to go kicking against stone walls or
rocks. Be good boys, and I won't be very hard on you. You'll eat and
drink your food better, and instead o' grizzling you'll enjoy yourselves
and get nice and fat. My pack, too, will like you all the better. I
don't think I shall let 'em have that ugly chap Bostock, though; he
cooks too well."

But Carey took matters, according to the doctor's ideas, too easily--too
freely. He did not shrink from speaking out and taking liberties with
his position. It was as if he had forgotten that he was a prisoner, and
he pretty well did as he liked.

"Here, what are you after, youngster? Where are you going?"

"Along with the pack to get cocoanuts," said Carey, coolly.

"I never told you," growled the old fellow, fiercely.

"No, but I want to see them get the nuts down," said Carey,
nonchalantly, and he went.

It was the same when a party of the blacks went fishing, which was
nearly every day, so that there was always an am