like a
false piece. "If you're not going to tell, you're not going to tell, and
there's an end to it."

"There can be no reason why I should affect the least degree of secrecy
about my island," returned Attwater; "that came wholly to an end with
your arrival; and I am sure, at any rate, that gentlemen like you and
Mr. Whish I should have always been charmed to make perfectly at home.
The point on which we are now differing--if you can call it a
difference--is one of times and seasons. I have some information which
you think I might impart, and I think not. Well, we'll see to-night!
By-by, Whish!" He stepped into his boat and shoved off. "All understood,
then?" said he. "The captain and Mr. Whish at six-thirty, and you, Hay,
at four precise. You understand that, Hay? Mind, I take no denial. If
you're not there by the time named, there will be no banquet; no song,
no supper, Mr. Whish!"

White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal of parti-coloured fishes
in the scarce denser medium below; between, like Mahomet's coffin, the
boat drew away briskly on the surface, and its shadow followed it over
the glittering floor of the lagoon. Attwater looked steadily back over
his shoulders as he sat; he did not once remove his eyes from the
_Farallone_ and the group on her quarter-deck beside the house, till his
boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurried
ashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in the chequered dusk of
the grove until the house received him.

The captain, with a gesture and a speaking countenance, called the
adventurers into the cabin.

"Well," he said to Herrick, when they were seated, "there's one good job
at least. He's taken to you in earnest."

"Why should that be a good job?" said Herrick.

"O, you'll see how it pans out presently," returned Davis. "You go
ashore and stand in with him, that's all! You'll get lots of pointers;
you can find out what he has, and what the charter is, and who's the
fourth man--for there's four of them, and we're only three."

"And suppose I do, what next?" cried Herrick. "Answer me that!"

"So I will, Robert Herrick," said the captain. "But first, let's see all
clear. I guess you know," he said, with imperious solemnity, "I guess
you know the bottom is out of this _Farallone_ speculation? I guess you
know it's _right_ out? and if this old island hadn't been turned up
right when it did, I guess you know where you and I and Huish would have
bee