on before, gone on board of her, and had seen that she
only wanted paint to be a handsome little boat. Unaccustomed to manual
labour, it seemed wonderful that three men--two of whom were
officers--should have even attempted such work with only the materials from
a wreck to build with.

Stephen had passed very lightly over his four days' nursing of Jacopo, but
this incident surprised them more than anything else, save the
construction of the cutter. That, after the man had murdered the captain
and attempted to shoot Stephen, with the intention of obtaining possession
of the whole of the gold, the latter should have nursed him back to life
instead of finishing him at once, seemed to them an incomprehensible piece
of folly.

"But the man was a murderer, senor; he deserved death. Why should you have
troubled about him, especially when, as you say, the natives might have
come at any moment and taken the craft that had cost you so much pains and
labour, and carried off the treasure."

"You see, when he became powerless, he was no longer an enemy," Stephen
replied. "He was a criminal, it is true; but the temptation had been
great. The man saw a chance of possessing himself of what to him was a
fabulous treasure; better men than he have yielded to such a temptation;
and though I do not say that he did not deserve death, the punishment of
seeing the failure of his plans, and of being left, probably for life, a
prisoner on that island was a severe one indeed. He will, at any rate,
have time to repent of his sins, and some day he may be picked up by a
passing vessel, and thus be able to retrieve his errors. At any rate, he
will do no harm there."

"Well, no ill came from it," one of the officers said; "but I own that,
for my part, as soon as I had knocked him down, I should have put my
musket to his head and blown out his brains, and should never have
repented the action afterwards."

"I might have done so," Stephen said, "had I overtaken him directly after
he had murdered my companion; but, you see, twenty-four hours had passed,
and I had had time to think how great had been the temptation to which he
had yielded. Besides, everything had gone well: I had obtained possession
of the cutter, and had partially victualled her; I had completely turned
the tables on him, and instead of his lying in wait for me I was lying in
wait for him. He was practically at my mercy, as I could have shot him
down without giving him any chance wh