ad been looking
at it. Neither of them spoke, but she knew what he suspected. She was
making her preparations to leave the ship. He looked at her mockingly.
Gradually, as though to prevent the captain from knowing what she was
about, she brought everything she owned into the cabin, and some of the
captain's clothes, and made them all into bundles. At last Bananas could
keep silence no longer. He pointed to a suit of ducks.

"What are you going to do with that?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm going back to my island."

He gave a laugh that distorted his grim face. The captain was dying and
she meant to get away with all she could lay hands on.

"What'll you do if I say you can't take those things? They're the
captain's."

"They're no use to you," she said.

There was a calabash hanging on the wall. It was the very calabash I had
seen when I came into the cabin and which we had talked about. She took
it down. It was all dusty, so she poured water into it from the
water-bottle, and rinsed it with her fingers.

"What are you doing with that?"

"I can sell it for fifty dollars," she said.

"If you want to take it you'll have to pay me."

"What d'you want?"

"You know what I want."

She allowed a fleeting smile to play on her lips. She flashed a quick
look at him and quickly turned away. He gave a gasp of desire. She
raised her shoulders in a little shrug. With a savage bound he sprang
upon her and seized her in his arms. Then she laughed. She put her arms,
her soft, round arms, about his neck, and surrendered herself to him
voluptuously.

When the morning came she roused him out of a deep sleep. The early rays
of the sun slanted into the cabin. He pressed her to his heart. Then he
told her that the captain could not last more than a day or two, and the
owner wouldn't so easily find another white man to command the ship. If
Bananas offered to take less money he would get the job and the girl
could stay with him. He looked at her with love-sick eyes. She nestled
up against him. She kissed his lips, in the foreign way, in the way the
captain had taught her to kiss. And she promised to stay. Bananas was
drunk with happiness.

It was now or never.

She got up and went to the table to arrange her hair. There was no
mirror and she looked into the calabash, seeking for her reflection. She
tidied her beautiful hair. Then she beckoned to Bananas to come to her.
She pointed to the calabash.

"There