the side."

"How?"

"He came scampering on deck just now, yelling blue murder, and trying to
catch crawly things that weren't there. Guess he'd got jim-jams bad.
Then he took it into his head that a swim would be useful, and before
any one could stop him, he was over the side."

"Well?"

"He's over the side still," said the Dane drily. "He didn't come to the
surface. Guess a crocodile chopped him."

"There are plenty round."

"Naturally. We've been ground baiting pretty liberally these last few
weeks. Well, I guess we are about through with the business now. Not
nervous about yourself, eh?"

"No," said Kettle, and touched his cap. "God's been looking on at this
gamble, as I told Rabeira last night, and He dealt over the beans the
way they were earned."

"That's all right," said Nilssen cheerfully. "When a man keeps his
courage he don't get small-pox, you bet."

"Well," said Kettle, "I suppose we'll be fumigated and get a clean bill
in about ten days from now, and I'm sure I don't mind the bit of extra
rest. I've got a lot of stuff I want to write up. It's come in my head
lately, and I've had no time to get it down on paper. I shouldn't wonder
but what it makes a real stir some day when it's printed; it's real good
stuff. I wonder if that yellow-faced Belgian doctor will live to give us
_pratique_?"

"I never saw a man with such a liver on him."

"D'you know," said Kettle, "I'd like that doctor to hang on just for
another ten days and sign our bill. He's a surly brute, but I've got to
have quite a liking for him. He seems to have grown to be part of the
show, just like the crows, and the sun, and the marigold smell, and the
crocodiles."

"Oh," said Nilssen, "you're a blooming poet. Come, have a cocktail
before we chop."

CHAPTER II.

THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD WITH THE EYES.

The colored Mrs. Nilssen, of Banana, gave the pink gin cocktails a final
brisk up with the swizzle-stick, poured them out with accurate division,
and handed the tray to Captain Kettle and her husband. The men drank off
the appetizer and put down the glasses. Kettle nodded a word of praise
for the mixture and thanks to its concoctor, and Mrs. Nilssen gave a
flash of white teeth, and then shuffled away off the veranda, and
vanished within the bamboo walls of the pilotage.

Nilssen sank back into his long-sleeved Madeira chair, a perfect wreck
of a man, and Kettle sat up and looked at him with a serious face. "Look
here," he