ng two pins from my coat, I inserted them into the holes made by the
fangs of the rattlesnake, and took them out covered with blood and
poison. In a few minutes this dried, and I then fastened the pins inside
the arm of Jim's coat in such a way that his hand would be scratched
when he put it on.

"'This done, I hung the coat back on the branch and walked off a little
way, but feeling more than half inclined to go back and take the pins
out again while there was yet time. Perhaps Jim did not mean to kill me,
but simply wished to protect himself against treachery on my part;--but
then I remembered the negro and the morphine, and--well, dead men tell
no tales. As I turned to go back, I saw Jim in the act of taking down
his coat, and I felt a queer choky sensation in my throat and a sort of
half catch to my breath as he pushed his arm through the sleeve, at the
same time putting the back of his hand to his lips in a way that could
only have one meaning. I watched him with an ugly feeling of
satisfaction, wondering how long it would take for the poison to begin
to take effect.

"'Jim put a couple of sticks on the fire, and then sat down on a log and
commenced to fill his pipe, but soon laid it down. "Curse it!" he said;
"I feel queer."

"'He got up and walked up and down, rubbing his arm. He looked at me in
an odd sort of way once or twice, and then went into the tent and lay
down. Shortly after he called to me, and on my going to the door of the
tent he tried to rise, but fell back and became delirious, laughing and
shouting my name, and muttering to himself. He breathed with difficulty,
and in a little while became unconscious, and just as the sun was
sinking over the faint line of trees in the west he died.

"'I took down the tent and dug a hole and buried him where he lay. I
built a huge fire and sat by it all night without closing my eyes.
Towards morning the moon came up and the sounds of the night noises
ceased, and as soon as it was light I put the gold and what things I
needed in the boat and made haste to leave the island. I paddled for two
or three hours before I noticed that the sun, which had been to my right
when I started, was at my left, and I knew that I must have turned the
boat around.

"'I turned about and paddled on steadily all day long, but night found
me with no signs of dry land anywhere, nothing but an unending stretch
of grass and water as far as the eye could reach.

"'When it grew dark I l