of a single bad habit we can
acquire in this place. No smokes, no drinks, few if any eats--and not
a chorister in sight. Let's organize the Robinson Crusoe Purity League,
Parlor Number One."

"Oh, gee!" Pete Murphy burst out. "It's just struck me. The Wilmington
'Blue,' is lost forever--it must have gone down with everything else."

Nobody spoke. It was an interesting indication of how their sense of
values had already shifted that the loss to the world of one of its
biggest diamonds seemed the least of their minor disasters.

"Perhaps that's what hoodooed us," Pete went on. "You know they say the
Wilmington 'Blue' brought bad luck to everybody who owned it. Anyway,
battle, murder, adultery, rape, rapine, and sudden death have followed
it right along the line down through history. Oh, it's been a busy cake
of ice--take it from muh! Hope the mermaids fight shy of it."

"The Wilmington 'Blue' isn't alone in that," Ralph Addington said. "All
big diamonds have raised hell. You ought to hear some of the stories
they tell in India about the rajahs' treasures. Some of those
briolettes--you listen long enough and you come to the conclusion that
the sooner all the big stones are cut up, the better."

"I bet this one isn't gone," said Pete. "Anybody take me? That's the
contrariety of the beasts--they won't stay lost. We'll find that stone
yet--where among our loot. The first thing we know, we'll be all knifing
each other to get it."

"Time's up," called Frank Merrill. "Sorry to drive you, but we've got
to keep at it as long as the light lasts. After to-day, though, we need
work only at high water. Between times, we can explore the island--" He
spoke as if he were wheedling a group of boys with the promise of play.

"Select a site for our capital city"--Honey Smith helped him out
facetiously--"lay out streets--begin to excavate for the church,
town-hall, schoolhouse, and library."

"The first thing to do now," Frank Merrill went on, as usual, ignoring
all facetiousness, "is to put up a signal."

Under his direction, they nailed a pair of sheets, one at the southern,
the other at the northern reef, to saplings which they stripped of
branches. Then they went back to the struggle for salvage.

The fascination of work--and of such novel work--still held them. They
labored the rest of the morning, lay off for a brief lunch, went at
it again in the afternoon, paused for dinner, and worked far into the
evening. Once they stop