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and alive with travelling lights, great globed fishes filled with soft radiance, and dreaming glimmers and pulsating tremors of glory and sudden errands of fire. Sailor and I stayed up quite late watching the wonder in which we so spaciously floated, and of the two of us, I am sure that Sailor knew more than I.
But one thought I had which I am sure was not his, because it was born of shallower conditions than those with which his instincts have to deal. I thought: What treasure sunk into the sea by whatsoever lost ship—galleons piled up and bursting with the gold and silver of Spain, or strange triangular-sailed boats sailing from Tripoli with the many-coloured jewels of the east, "ivory, apes, and peacocks"—what treasure sunk there by man could be compared with the treasure already stored there by Nature, dropped as out of the dawn and the sunset into these unvisited waters by the lavish hand of God? What diver could hope to distinguish among all these glories the peculiar treasures of kings?
We awoke to a dawn that was a rose planted in the sky by the mysterious hand that seems to love to give the fairest thing the loneliest setting.
But there was no wind, so that day we ran on gasolene. We had some fifty miles to go to where the narrative pointed, a smaller cay, the cay which it will be remembered was, according to John Saunders's old map, known in old days as "Dead Men's Shoes"—but since known by another name which, for various reasons, I do not deem it politic to divulge—near the end of the long cay down which we were running.
Tom and I talked it over, and thought that it might be all the better to take it easy that day and arrive there next morning, when, after a good night's sleep, we should be more likely to feel rested, and ready to grapple with whatever we had to face.
So about twilight we dropped anchor in another quiet bay, so much like that of the night before, as all the bays and cays are along that coast, that you need to have sailed them from boyhood to know one from another.
The cove we were looking for, known by the cheery name of Dead Men's Shoes, proved farther off than we expected, so that we didn't come to it till toward the middle of the next afternoon, an afternoon of the most innocent gold that has ever thrown its soft radiance over an earth inhabited for the most part by ruffians and scoundrels.
The soft lapping beauty of its little cove, in such odd contrast to its sinister name—sunshine on coral sand, and farther inland, the mangrove trees, like walking laurel stepping out into the golden ripples—Ah! I should like to try my hand on the beauty of that afternoon; but we were not allowed to admire it long, for we were far from being alone.
"She's changed her paint," said Tom, at my elbow. And, looking round, I saw that our rakish schooner with the black hull was now white as a dove; and, in that soft golden water, hardly a foot and a half deep, five shadowy young sharks floated, with outstretched fins like huge bats. Our engineer, who was already wading fearlessly in the water, beautifully naked, "shooed" them off like chickens. But it was soon to be evident that more dangerous foes waited for us on the shore.
Yet there was seemingly nothing there but a pile of sponges, and a few black men. The Susan B. had changed her colour, it was true, but she was a well-known sponger, and I noticed no one among the group ashore that I recognised.
There was one foolish fellow that reminded me of my shackly deck-hand, whom I had always thought out of his mind, standing there on his head on the rocks, and waving his legs to attract attention.
"Why! There's Silly Theodore," called out the captain.
"Look out!" murmured Tom at my elbow.
"I'm going ashore all the same, Tom," I said.
"I'm going with you too," said the Captain. "You needn't be afraid of me. You're the sort I like. But look after your guns. There's going to be something doing—quiet as it looks."
So we rowed ashore, and there was Theodore capering in front of a pile of sponges, but no other face that I knew. But there were seven or eight negroes whose looks I took no great liking to.
"Like some fancy sponges to send home?" said one of these, coming up to me. "Cost you five times as much in Nassau."
"Certainly I'd like a few sponges," I said.
And then Theodore came up to me, looking as though he had lost his mind over the rather fancy silk tie I happened to be wearing.
"Give me dat!" he said, touching it, like a crazy man.
"I can't afford to give you that, Theodore."
"I'd die for dat," he declared.
"Take this handkerchief instead;" but, meanwhile, my eyes were opening. "Take this instead, Theodore," I suggested.
"I'd die for dat," he repeated, touching it.
His voice and touch made me sick and afraid, just as people in a lunatic asylum make one afraid.
"Look out!" murmured Tom again at my elbow.
And just then I noticed, hiding in some bushes of seven-year apple trees, two faces I had good reason to know.
I had barely time to pull out the Commandant's revolver from my pocket. I knew it was to be either the pock-marked genius or the engineer. But, for the moment, I was not to be sure which one I had hit. For, as my gun went off, something heavy came down on my head, and for the time I was shut off from whatever else was going on.
Chapter VIII
In Which I Once Again Sit Up and Behold the Sun.
"Which did I hit, Tom?" were my first words as I came back to the glory of the world; but I didn't say them for a long time, and, from what Tom told me it was a wonder I ever said them at all.
"There he is, sar," said Tom, pointing to a long dark figure stretched out near by. "I'm afraid he's not the man you were looking for."
"Poor fellow!" I said; it was George, the engineer; "I'm sorry—but I saw the muzzles of their guns sticking out of the bush there. It was they or me."
"That no lie, sar, and, if it hadn't been for that sucking-fish's skin, you wouldn't be here now."
"It didn't save me from a pretty good one on the head, Tom, did it?"
"No, sar, but that was just it—if it hadn't been for that knock on the head, pulling you down just that minute, that thar pock-marked fellow would have got you. As it was, he grazed your cheek, and got one of his own men killed by mistake—the very fellow that hit you. There he is—over there."
"And who's that other, Tom?" I asked, pointing to another dark figure a few yards away.
"That's the captain, sar."
"The captain? O I'm sorry for that. God knows I'm sorry for that."
"Yas, sar, he was one of the finest gentlemen I ever knowed was Captain Tomlinson; a brave man and a good navigator. And he'd taken a powerful fancy to you, for when you got that crack on the head, he picked up your gun, and began blazing away, with words I should never have expected from a religious man. The others, except our special friend—"
"Let's call him Tobias from now on, Tom," I interposed.
"Well him, sar, kept his nerve, but the others ran for the boats as if the devil was after them; but the captain's gun was quicker, and only four of them got to the Susan B. The other two fell on their faces, as if something had tripped them up, in a couple of feet of water. But, just then, Tobias hit the captain right in the heart; ah! if only he had one of those skins—but he always laughed off such things as superstitious.
"There was only me and Tobias then, and the dog, for the engineer boy had gone on his knees to the Susan B. fellows, at the first crack, and begged them to take him away with them. I wouldn't have thought it of him—for he wasn't afraid o' them sharks, sar, as you saw, but I suppose it was thinking of his gal—anyway he went off a-praying and blubbering with what was left of the