he officers came running up, waving his sword and
shouting; while Jack, confident that he had nothing now to apprehend,
dropped the rifle and turned to meet him. He had scarcely got so far as,
"Please, sir, this boat is my property," when a scream from Fetuao
warned him that the natives were rushing his house. Abandoning the boat,
he ran back to face this new danger, which, of the two, was so
infinitely the worse. His first instinct was to snatch a hatchet and
kill one of the half-naked plunderers, but Fetuao, catching his hands,
held him back, and the impulse passed as he realized his utter
helplessness. With smarting eyes and a heart that seemed to burst within
his breast, he saw his house gutted of everything--his chests torn open,
his tools taken, his wife's poor finery divided, and her twenty-dollar
sewing machine the subject of a wrangle that ended in its being smashed
under the butt of a gun. It was horrible to look on, impotent and
raging, and see the fruit of three years the prey of these yelling
savages; to realize that he must begin again from the bottom; that all
his labor, and care, and thrift, had gone for nothing. Not daring to
leave Fetuao behind, he took her with him and started off to find the
officer to whom he had at first complained. His protest had not
apparently been very effective, to judge from the torn fragments of the
boat now blazing in a bonfire, and he was hardly encouraged to make a
second attempt. However, slim as the chance was, it was now the only
thing left to do. Surely it was not possible that they would let his
house be looted and fired with the others!

The officer, a thin young man with a cigar, was standing in the shade of
a palm.

"Mister," said Jack timidly, for somehow all the fight had oozed out of
him, "Mister, they're looting my house up there!"

"Well?" said the officer.

"I'm an American," said Jack.

"Well?" said the officer.

Jack regarded him helplessly. "Can't you do nothing for an American?" he
asked.

"Not for a damned beach-comber," said the officer, turning on his heel.

Jack did not attempt to follow or to pester him. He knew when he was
beat. He sat down on the nearest log, and making room for Fetuao beside
him, drew out his pipe, filled it and began to smoke. The girl tried to
speak to him, but he would not answer. She whispered to him that their
house was burning, and he never even turned his head to look. She took
his hand, but he snatched it impati