erous suggestion. "You'll warm
to it by degrees."

"You are asking me to join in wholesale robbery at the least?" I said,
still angrily struggling with my stupor.

"I am," he answered, and he leaned forward. "D'you think I'm entering
on this game wildly? Not I. I mean to carry it out. Do you suppose I
haven't laid my plans? Why, more than half the men are mine. I saw to
that. It was I got 'em." He placed a large hand on my shoulder and his
eyes gleamed diabolically in his set face. "They'll do my bidding. I
command here, sir, and damn your Captain Day. I'll take 'em to Hell if
I want to." I shook off his hand roughly.

"I may tell you," I said in as cool a tone as I could assume, "that I
am going straight on deck to the captain to retail this conversation.
You have, therefore, probably about ten minutes left you for
reflection, which I hope will bring you consolation."

Holgate got up, and without undue haste threw open the large port,
through which streamed the clamour of the water.

"I guess I've misunderstood you," said he quietly, "and it isn't often
I make a mistake." He lifted his lip in a grin, and I could see a
horrid tier of teeth, which seemed to have grown together like concrete
in one huge fang. "It is in my power, Dr. Phillimore, to blow your
brains out here and now. The noise of the sea would cover the report,"
and he fingered a pistol that now I perceived in his hand. "Outside
yonder is a grave that tells no tales. The dead rise up never from the
sea, by thunder! And the port's open. I'm half in the mind----" He
threw the weapon carelessly upon the bunk and laughed. "Look you,
that's how I value you. You are mighty conscientious, doctor, but you
have no value. You're just the ordinary, respectable, out-of-elbows
crock that peoples that island over yonder. You are good neither for
good nor ill. A crew of you wouldn't put a knot on a boat. So that's
how I value you. If you won't do my work one way you shall another.
I'll have my value out of you some way, if only to pay back my
self-respect. You're safe from pistol and shark. Go, and do what you
will. I'll wait for you and lay for you, chummie."

I stood listening to this remarkable tirade, which was offered in a
voice by no means angry, but even something contemptuous, and without a
word I left him. I went, as I had promised, at once to the captain,
whom I found in his cabin with a volume of De Quincey.

"Well, doctor," said he, laying down the boo