n the
eyes. It was pretty practice."

"You could do that?" asked Herrick, with a sudden chill.

"O, I can do anything," returned the other. "You do not understand: what
must be, must."

They were now come near to the back part of the house. One of the men
was engaged about the cooking-fire, which burned with the clear, fierce,
essential radiance of cocoa-nut shells. A fragrance of strange meats was
in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps were lighted, so that the
place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees with many complicated
patterns of shadow.

"Come and wash your hands," said Attwater, and led the way into a clean,
matted room with a cot bed, a safe, a shelf or two of books in a glazed
case, and an iron washing-stand. Presently he cried in the native, and
there appeared for a moment in the doorway a plump and pretty young
woman with a clean towel.

"Hullo!" cried Herrick, who now saw for the first time the fourth
survivor of the pestilence, and was startled by the recollection of the
captain's orders.

"Yes," said Attwater, "the whole colony lives about the house, what's
left of it. We are all afraid of devils, if you please! and Taniera and
she sleep in the front parlour, and the other boy on the verandah."

"She is pretty," said Herrick.

"Too pretty," said Attwater. "That was why I had her married. A man
never knows when he may be inclined to be a fool about women; so when we
were left alone I had the pair of them to the chapel and performed the
ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic view
of marriage," he explained.

"And that strikes you as a safeguard?" asked Herrick with amazement.

"Certainly. I am a plain man and very literal. _Whom God hath joined
together_ are the words, I fancy. So one married them, and respects the
marriage," said Attwater.

"Ah!" said Herrick.

"You see, I may look to make an excellent marriage when I go home,"
began Attwater confidentially. "I am rich. This safe alone"--laying his
hand upon it--"will be a moderate fortune, when I have the time to place
the pearls upon the market. Here are ten years' accumulation from a
lagoon, where I have had as many as ten divers going all day long; and I
went further than people usually do in these waters, for I rotted a lot
of shell and did splendidly. Would you like to see them?"

This confirmation of the captain's guess hit Herrick hard, and he
contained himself with difficulty. "No, thank you,