ple.

The boy, tired from his walk along the soft white sand, threw himself
down negligently beneath the trees, in the shade, and, finding one of
the fruits fallen, close to his hand, picked it up and half decided to
eat it. An inner warning bade him pause.

The day had been hot and the shade was inviting. A sour and yet not
unpleasant odor was in the air. It made him sleepy, or, to speak more
correctly, it made his limbs heavy, while a certain exhilaration of
spirits lulled him into a false content. Soon, under these trees, on the
beach near Bathsheba, Stuart passed into a languorous waking dream.

And the red land-crabs, on their stilt-like legs, crept nearer and
nearer.

An hour later, one of the Barbadian negroes, coming home from his work,
was met at the door of his cabin by his wife, her eyes wide with alarm.

"White pickney go along Terror Cove. No come um back."

"Fo' de sake!" came the astonished exclamation. "Best hop along, see!"

The burly negro, well-built like all his fellows, struck out along the
beach. He talked to himself and shook his frizzled head as he went. His
pace, which was distinctly that of hurry, betokened his disturbed mind.

"Pickney go alone here, by golly!" he declared as he traced the prints
of a booted foot on the white sand and saw that they led only in one
direction. "No come back! Dem debbil-trees, get um!"

He turned the corner and paused a minute at the extraordinary sight
presented.

In the curve of the cove, dancing about with high, measured steps, like
that of a trained carriage-horse, was the boy, his hands clutching a
stout stick with which he was beating the air around him as though
fighting some imaginary foe, in desperation for his life. The sand
around his feet was spotted, as though with gouts of blood, by the ruddy
land-crabs, and, from every direction, these repulsive carrion eaters
were hastening to their prey.

They formed a horrible alliance--the "debbil-trees" and the blood-red
land-crabs!

The negro broke into a run. The old instinct of the black to serve the
white rose in him strongly, though his own blood ran cold as he came
near the "debbil-trees."

The crabs were swarming all about the boy. Some of the most daring were
clawing their way up his trousers, but Stuart seemed to have no eyes for
them. With jerky strokes, as though his arms were worked by a string,
he struck and slashed at the air at some imaginary enemy about the
height of his waist.