pistol hidden in the thatch
of the roof. Brady, on the instant, leveled his own and thundered out:

"Drop it, or I'll shoot!"

"Shoot, and be damned!" returned Jack, and with that he turned his
pistol on himself, and, placing the muzzle against his forehead, pulled
the trigger.

It missed fire.

Before he could try again Brady had caught him round the neck, while
Hatch, resigning the girl to Stanbury-Jones, ran in and snapped the
handcuffs on his wrists.

"Jack," cried Brady, "we aren't going to hurt you. We're rescuing you
from the hill tribes. Man, you're saved!"

"You never was no deserter," said Hatch.

"Mind you back us up, old fellow," said Winterslea.

"Give us your fin, boy," said Hotham.

It was some time before Jack could pull himself together. When at last
he did so, and began to appreciate the generosity of his captain and
shipmates and their astounding concern to save him from the penalty of
his crime, he underwent one of those reactions when despair gives way to
the maddest gayety. He swore at Hatch, and made him take off the irons;
he got out a bottle of white rum and forced them all to drink his
health; he kept them in a roar with the story of his adventures, and
laughed and cried in turn as he described his life ashore.

"What does she want?" demanded Brady, as Tehea insistently repeated some
words in native.

"She says," said Jack, calmly picking up the whistle from the floor and
touching it to his lips, "she says I've only to blow this and you will
all be dead in five minutes."

A hush fell upon the company.

Jack, with an oath, flung the whistle from him.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am grateful. I am damned grateful! If I live I
shall try and repay each one of you. I shall try and be a better man. I
shall try to be worthy of your kindness."

He went round and shook hands solemnly with every one of them. "Damned
grateful!" he repeated.

"Let's be off," said Brady.

"Now, lad, your word of honor," said Winterslea. Jack looked about him
helplessly.

"I suppose I've no right to ask such a thing," he said. "I know how good
you've been to me already, and all that. But--but, gentlemen, she's my
wife. I love her. I shall never see her again. May I not entreat a
minute to myself?"

"No," said Brady.

Jack went over to Tehea and took her hand. He put his arms about her,
and, unashamed before them all, pressed her comely head against his
breast. He tried to explain the inexorable fate