The girl's strange behaviour did not surprise me. In the short time that she had been among us I had become quite used to her vagaries. I have spoken of her as a savage, but only as one would call any human being a savage, either black or white, who had attacked another as viciously as this girl had attacked Cynthia. The girl was not a savage in the common acceptation of the term. She was of mixed blood, a French octoroon, probably from the country districts; at least so the simple chemisette and short skirt which comprised her costume would imply. Her hair was black and wavy, her lips red, her teeth white and small. She was plump and prettily formed, and looked in reality like a girl of eighteen, though we afterward learned that she was just then in her fourteenth year.

A large tree, which had fallen across the stream up near the cliff, formed a bridge over the deep little river. To this the HaÏtienne flew, and, springing upon its trunk, she crossed to the other side as if she had been a rope-walker. I watched her as she fled down the beach. I did not care when she returned to us, or, indeed, whether she came back at all, but the pangs of hunger were beginning to tell upon me, and the Bo's'n was the only one who could assuage them. So I turned from contemplating the flying figure of the girl and gazed in the opposite direction. The Bo's'n, too, was still running, as if pursued by some horrid nightmare. I watched until I saw that he had abandoned his pace, then ran slowly, then settled down into a walk, looking furtively over his shoulder the while, and finally stopped. I beckoned to him, but he shook his head. I started up the beach to meet him, but he began to run to the westward again. I returned to Cynthia.

"Give that fellow up as a bad job," said I. "Did you ever cook anything, Miss Archer?"

"I can make calves'-foot jelly," said Cynthia, "and oley-koeks. I always made those for Christmas dinner at home."

I looked around the shore scrutinizingly.

"I don't see any little calf sticking up his feet to be chopped off—except the Minion," I added, after a moment's survey of the sloping sand, where the cabin boy was disporting himself upon his back with his feet in the air. "I suppose oily what-you-call-'ems need butter and eggs——"

"As I haven't the necessary materials, suppose I cook some pork," said Cynthia. "I suppose"—looking quietly at me—"it isn't so very difficult. You will have to build a fire, you know, and wash the frying-pan and cut the pork."

"And lay it in the spider and let it cook itself," said I. "I am sorry to put you to so much trouble."

"Don't mention it," said Cynthia good-naturedly. "Now, you know, by rights a piece of the old Yankee should come floating ashore with a dozen fowls, a pail of milk, and a keg of butter planted safely on the upper side and——"

"A barrel of flour," added I. "Well, stranger things have happened——"

"Not much," said Cynthia.

This silly badinage served to while away the time while I cut the pork, made the fire, and started the breakfast on its way. I brought the water and hard bread, and then told Cynthia that if she would watch the breakfast I would go and take a bath. I had something on my mind which depressed me greatly. When I took the parrot's cage ashore on the previous evening, I had hung it on the limb of a ceiba too high for Cynthia to reach. That was very well for the night, but this was the next morning, and, like many another next morning, its light ushered in a day of reckoning. I had told Cynthia, I am ashamed to say, that I would give Solomon his food and water, and I am also humiliated to confess that I did actually fill the bird's cup and take it with a bit of hard bread to the secluded place which I had chosen for the scene of my base deception. Let me state here, with the entire reliability of all explorers, that it was not entirely the fear of what Cynthia would think of me for the part which I had played in what was to me a comedy, and which might prove to her a tragedy, but that I really could not bear the thought of seeing her sorrow when she first heard the dreadful news that Solomon had escaped. I had often longed to wring the neck of the feathered brute, for he had repaid me, as many kindnesses are repaid in this world, by biting my finger to the bone when I had tried to tempt him with some dainty. However, Cynthia loved him, and, notwithstanding his viciousness, I had tried to make friends with him for her sake. Kick a man's dog, and he is done with you. Ill treat a woman's parrot, and if that woman is the woman you adore, you had better be dead. I had left the cover drawn tightly over the cage, telling Cynthia that it would protect the bird from the night dews, Facilis descensus Averno. Little Adoniah says that means tell one lie and you will have to tell a hundred. I had stuck to the letter of the truth, but I really cared very little whether the dews of evening or the deluges of the tropics descended in floods upon that wretched bird. When I left Cynthia I walked directly up the bank of the stream, and was soon lost to sight behind the low foliage which fringed its western slope. So soon as Cynthia could no longer see me, I struck to the right, and, circling round, I was again in the vicinity of the camp. I could see that her back was turned toward me as she stooped over the frying-pan, scorching her hands and face doubtless in doing this menial work. I went to the tree where the cage hung, reached up and pulled down the limb, seized upon the cage, loosened the catches, and quietly released the floor. This I laid upon the ground half upon edge, as if it had fallen so. I then returned to the stream and took my bath, which much refreshed me, and appeared in camp with my guilty heart thumping and my pulses ringing in my ears. The Skipper was narrating a wonderful tale to Cynthia, to which she was listening, as if she wished some confirmatory evidence before quite believing him.

"Oysters growing on trees!" Cynthia exclaimed as I joined them. "Uncle Tony, you should not try to practice upon my credulity in that way, and you a member of the church in good and regular standing! But then you don't carry the deacons to sea with you, or——"

The Skipper asserted his discovery in loud and positive tones, which drowned Cynthia's softer ones.

"Don't be a fool, girl! Shows you never travelled. Here's one now! See it? Shell and all! Here's where I broke it off the branch!"

"Well! It beats Robinson Crusoe," said Cynthia. She turned to me. "Do you believe it, Mr. Jones?"

"It is nothing new," said I. "I will take a pail, if you like, and get some for breakfast."

"I will go with you," said Cynthia. "I know there's some catch about it. I never saw oysters growing on trees."

"That's strange!" said the Skipper with ill-concealed scorn; "since you have seen everything else in the whole blessed world——"

"Where are they, Captain?" I inquired, interrupting the controversy.

"Along there, where that girl's standing. You go and get 'em, and I'll fry some more pork."

I took the pail which the Bo's'n had left near the fire and we started across the tree and along the beach in the direction which the HaÏtien girl had taken. When she saw Cynthia approaching, she began to run with the fleetness of a deer.

"I guess she's gone for good," I said.

Long before we reached the low mangrove growth we heard a curious snapping, like quick, sharp taps with a hammer. "Click!" "click!" "click!" it sounded, until, as we drew close, the noise was confusing, and we had to raise our voices somewhat in speaking. We came to a little inlet, a sort of marshy place, where thousands of the low mangrove trees grew and pushed their roots and hooplike ends into the salt water.

"Now where are your trees?" asked Cynthia.

"Why, there they are, those mangrove trees."

"Oh, you call those trees, do you? Explosion of story number one."

"Story?"

"I didn't like to call it by its real name," said Cynthia, "as Uncle Tony told it. Don't you think, Mr. Jones, that going to sea is very bad for the mor——"

The conversation was taking too personal a turn. I pushed in among the hooplike roots.

"See here!" I said, "and here! and here!" as I pulled the oysters from their holding places and threw them into the pail. All about us the shells were opening and shutting, as if they longed for the return of the tide, which was about two feet below them.

"Now that's exactly like so many of the stories one hears. I expected to stand under a very high tree and see you climb it as you would a hickory at home. I meant to stand under the branches and hold my dress and catch—Oh, pshaw! Why do I talk to you?"

"You have too much imagination," said I. "Just taste one before you begin to abuse us all so."

"I am not abusing any one, Mr. Jones; I only said——"

"Halloo! Halloo!"

It was the Skipper's voice. Fearing that something of an unpleasant nature had occurred, we started quickly back again.

"Breakfast's ready," said the Skipper, with his mouth full of pork.

As I approached the camp I saw a signal in the distance. I discovered after a moment's scrutiny that it was a signal from the Bo's'n. I beckoned him to come to me, but he only shook his head, and waved more wildly than before, pointing with sharp, quick jerks of his thumb over his shoulder to the westward.

"Are you going to see what that fool wants?" asked the Skipper.

"No," returned I. "I am tired of playing tag with the Bo's'n and the HaÏtien girl. Besides, I am famished."

We sat down on the rocks and ate our salt pork from a plate made of hard bread. We washed it down with water from the spring at the base of the rocks, and I heard no remarks upon the coarse fare.

Cynthia said only that she had never known how good salt pork and ship's biscuits were, and that she should get Aunt Mary 'Zekel to have them three times a week when she got home.

"Where's that Minion?" asked the Skipper, with his mouth full.

As nothing was to be seen of the boy, we left his breakfast with the Bo's'n's share and that reserved for the HaÏtien girl, and I started to go to the rescue of the Bo's'n, who was still waving violently. I had taken but a few steps when I heard a call from Cynthia.

"Mr. Jones," she called, "bring me a biscuit before you go." My heart sank down like lead. In the pleasure of gathering the oysters and the walk which I had had with her alone I had forgotten that the day of reckoning was near at hand. I took a piece of bread from the cask and ran to meet her.

"Hungry again?" I asked, outwardly smiling. There was a singing in my ears. I could hardly see.

"Oh, no," said she in answer; "but 'a merciful man,' you know, and my poor beast must be starving."

"Yes, I think he is," said I. I forgot the Bo's'n's signal; I forgot everything.

I seated myself miserably on a stone and waited for the deluge. It came. I heard:

"Oh! Oh! Uncle! Mr. Jones, do come here; Solomon's gone!"

"We ought to sing the doxology," said the Skipper to me in an undertone. He called to her in a well-simulated tone of regret:

"Oh, no, Cynthy, it can't be possible!"

So there were two cowards of us.

"How can she tell? She can't reach the cage," said I.

"How can you tell he's gone?" called the Skipper, in tones whose joy was but poorly concealed. "You can't reach the cage."

"I'm standing right under the cage, Uncle; I can see right into it. O Solomon, Solomon! my dear, darling, beautiful bird!"

"Never knew she could look through a piece of tin. Guess I'll go and see."

I put my fingers in my ears and ran toward the Bo's'n, who was still waving. The Minion trotted along by my side. The strange thing about the Minion was that, unlike most boys, he seldom spoke; I should have thought that he was dumb had it not been that occasionally, when hard pressed, he did open his childish lips and pour forth words of wisdom. There is an old saying that actions speak louder than words. The Minion seemed to prefer to communicate his thoughts in this way. He pointed to the beach, where I still saw the Bo's'n making his gestures. I turned and looked back to the camp. I put my hands to my mouth and hallooed to the Skipper, who had emerged from the shadow of the trees.

"It's a flag of truce, I think," said I.

I saw the Skipper shake his head and look despondently on the ground. What he said was: "O Lord! those wretched sailors again."

I wondered if he was correct in his surmise as I ran along toward where the Bo's'n stood. When he saw that I was really coming, he dropped the flag of truce and put it on, for it was his shirt which he had fastened to a branch to use for this purpose.

"How silly you are, Bo's'n!" I said. "I can't be following you all over the island. You had better come back to the camp and behave like a Christian."

A look of horror overspread his face as I spoke of his return to the camp, but he shook his head and said:

"I should not have called you, sir, Mr. Jones, sir, but I have discovered something. I thought you would like to know it." He turned and walked briskly away.

"Hold on!" I said. "I am tired of this tomfoolery. Do you know what a hot morning it is?"

"Yessir, I know, sir," said the Bo's'n. "Come here, sir."

The Bo's'n's air of mystery overcame my desire to sit down in the shade. I followed where he led.

"It's the result of the battle, sir," he explained.

"What battle?" I asked, as I walked beside him.

"The fight between the sailors and the HaÏtiens, sir."

"You don't mean," I said, "that the sailors have come down here to——"

"No, only those are here who were left here." He parted the shoreward bushes and revealed to me three men lying there. Two of them were white men. They were our sailors Wilson and Tanby. The other was a HaÏtien. He was lying by a partly dug grave. Indeed, so nearly ready was the grave that I had some thought of confiscating it for the body of one of our sailors. There were two other graves; at least, so I took them to be. They were finished, and their occupants were at rest under that wonderful leafy bower which only the tropics can afford. I thought that I heard a rustling in the bushes, and told the Bo's'n my suspicions. The Minion pointed to the thicket, and with a wild yell disappeared. One never knew what the Minion would do. One always knew what he would say, and that was nothing. There seemed to be an air of mystery about this secluded spot. I watched the bushes, expecting the Minion's return, and, as I watched, I felt that a pair of eyes was fixed on me. I pierced the undergrowth right and left with my gaze, but only the mompoja leaves moved languidly in the baby breeze which was now stirring, the precursor of a later wind. I followed the Minion into the thicket, but saw no one. Even the Minion had vanished. It was a great relief to me to be able to act like a man with courage once more, instead of guarding my words for fear that they would agitate the being the dearest in the world to me.

"Did you see any one as you came along the beach, Bo's'n?" said I.

"No, sir, Mr. Jones, sir; I was not looking or thinking of any one when I stumbled right on them bodies. I was running to get away, sir."

Again the look of horror overspread his features, and he glanced backward over his shoulders toward the camp.

I believe in always going to the root of a matter with the ignorant and superstitious.

"Now, Bo's'n," I said, with an air of logical argument, "what should you see in that simple, plain, iron trinket—" But he stopped me with a gesture which was strangely authoritative from an inferior to a superior, and in hushed, scared tones he said:

"Don't speak of it, Mr. Jones. Don't mention it, sir. Don't think of it. Make the young lady throw it away."

"Make!"

"Yessir, Mr. Jones, make her throw it away, sir."

I laughed to reassure him, though I must acknowledge that I was impressed by his manner. My laughter had the effect of reassuring myself somewhat also.

"Shall I take the boat and row out and sink this dangerous bauble with its snake's body"—a tremor seemed to seize my listener, and he shook as if with a chill—"and its sheep's head?"

"Do not make fun of it, sir. You will be sor——"

"We will go and get it, Bo's'n, and you shall row me out while I——"

"Do not ask me to touch it, sir. There is doom in that sign." I noticed that he did not call it a ring, as I had done; and then he came close to me and looked into my eyes with impressive and beseeching earnestness, and said in a whisper:

"You may take it out to sea, far, far out to sea, and drop it beneath the waves, but the storms will come, the waves will roll, and the breakers will dash it again on the shore. You may bury it in a pit so deep that you can hardly get yourself out again from its grave, but an earthquake will rumble beneath it and with its cracks will upheave it, and it will be here again. You may take it to the top of yonder mountain and lay it on the topmost peak, but the tempests will come and the hurricane will blow and will toss it again at your feet. She has found it, and it will follow her to the end—to the end."

The mysterious tone of the man, the ghostlike voice in which he spoke, made me feel unpleasantly, although it was broad day and the sun was shining brightly. He seemed to be lifted out of himself, and to speak in a voice and tone not his own. I tried to laugh. I reasoned with myself thus. How utterly absurd that a man of little education, of the most ordinary ability, and, withal, a man holding that absurd position Bo's'n of a merchant craft, should have an insight into mystical and occult things which none of the rest of us possess! But as he still stood staring at me, and directly into my eyes, as if he would read into the very depths of my mind, I began to have what is commonly called a creepy sensation. Little shivers ran up my backbone, and I longed for other companionship. I cast a glance at the dead men, and felt that if I were to retain the strength to go for aid to bury them, the sooner I went the better for me. With difficulty I withdrew my gaze from the man's eyes.

"Come, come, Bo's'n!" I said, forcing a laugh, "you are overwrought and nervous. Come back with me, and I will give you my word that you shall not see the ring again while you remain with us."

He stood gazing irresolutely out to sea.

"It is no ring!" he muttered. "A circle, a sign, an emblem of horror—of dread—of vengeance!"

"I am hungry, Bo's'n," I said, dropping from the height to which he had raised me and endeavouring to drag him down with me. "You left your post, and Miss Archer is doing your work. I shall return for my breakfast, and then get the Captain to come back here with me and bury our men. That will be only decent."

These matter-of-fact statements brought the Bo's'n down to earth again.

"I see crumbs on your shirt front," said he. He spoke now in his natural voice. His eyes had lost their far-seeing look. I left him and ran back to the camp, calling him to follow. I told the Skipper what he had found, also his strange and unreasonable terror of the ring. Cynthia looked sad and downcast, but entered into this new subject with interest.

"If he's afraid of the ring, I can conceal it," said she, "but don't ask me to throw it away. I wouldn't give it up now for the world."

"For some reason," said I, "the man is half dead with fright. Just hide it, Miss Archer, and I will tell the Bo's'n that you have thrown it away."

Another!

People will tell you that it is only wicked women who lead men astray. Here was the best and sweetest woman that I had ever known, and I had told three absolute falsehoods in less than an hour's time, and was ready to tell another—many others, in fact—should circumstances demand it.

"I think it very wrong to tell a falsehood," said Cynthia. "I never tell one"—a short pause—"unless it is absolutely necessary."

Meanwhile she was feeling under her collar. When her fingers came to view again, they held a little gold chain and locket. I looked at the locket curiously.

"My lover's portrait," said Cynthia, looking up at me with a saucy smile. She calmly and with patience prepared to pull apart the two pieces of the slide or clasp that held the delicate chain together.

"This was my baby chain; I have worn it ever since I was a little thing.—How old, Uncle Tony?"

The Skipper blew his nose.

"I remember my sister putting that chain on you before you could walk, Cynthy," he said. "I remember she said it was big enough to grow in."

"I have never taken it off but twice," said Cynthia; "once to slip the locket on empty, and once to slip it on after I put the picture in it."

"Let us have a look at William," said I, chagrined that I had not destroyed the only likeness extant of that hated individual.

"You shall see it some time," returned Cynthia. "There!" She took the ring from her pocket, slipped the chain through the circle made by the serpent's body, and clasped it around her neck.

"Don't do it!" I remonstrated. "There may be something in the Bo's'n's fears, after all."

"Nonsense!" laughed Cynthia, as she tucked the ring down below her collar and rearranged her tie. Her dress was still neat and fresh, but as I looked at her I wondered how long it would be before she would appear like other shipwrecked women.

And now I beckoned to the Bo's'n. He started and came haltingly up the beach. I cast my eyes on the loose pebbles at my feet for a moment and discovered what I wanted. As children we had often played with what we called lucky stones. A lucky stone was a little stone washed by the motion of the water into an open circle. The lucky stone that I picked up was a glittering piece of rock, and shone in the sun.

"We can not spare the Bo's'n's services," I said, "and he won't come back to camp until the ring is thrown away, so here goes."

The Bo's'n was nearing us slowly on the left, and the HaÏtien girl as reluctantly upon the right. When the Bo's'n was perhaps a hundred feet away, I threw back my arm and hurled the pebble as far away as I could. It glittered as it flew through the air, and entered the water with a splash at about three hundred feet from the shore. I was considered a good thrower in my time.

The Bo's'n advanced now with more confidence, though he looked continually out into the bay at the concentric rings in the water, which were approaching the beach where we stood.

"Expect that fool is looking to see it bob up and swim ashore," laughed the Skipper. The HaÏtien girl now returned also. She drew close to Cynthia, and laid her cheek down on her skirt in a respectful way.

"Li negue a peu," she whispered. She looked at the place where the stone had gone down and shuddered. She shook her head several times. "Ça, retou'! Ça retou'!" she said.

"I understand her talk a little, sir," volunteered the Bo's'n. "I lived with a Dominican, Mr. Jones, sir, for a year. I was with Toussaint's army when he marched to HaÏti." That seemed ancient history to me, and I gazed on the Bo's'n with respect. "It was then I learned about——" He broke off suddenly.

"What did Lacelle say, Bo's'n?" asked Miss Archer.

"She says the negro is afraid, miss. That's what she meant to say, miss. The HaÏtiens don't speak what they call the fine French, miss. It's half African and half French, miss."

"Captain," I said, "we are wasting a good deal of time over nothing, seems to me. There is something that we should do as soon as possible." I drew him aside and told him about the dead sailors.

"Come on," said the Skipper readily. "Bo's'n, you stay and watch the camp, and if any danger threatens, signal us."

"What with, Cap'n, sir?"

"Why, as you did before."

The Bo's'n became very red, looked at Miss Archer sheepishly, and said, "Yessir." The Minion had now appeared mysteriously from somewhere, and, after ordering him to stay with the party and help the Bo's'n "clean up," we started. We pushed the boat into the water. The Skipper took the steering oar and I took the sculls, and we pulled westward. When we arrived at our destination, I beached the boat and walked with the Captain up the slope to where the dead sailors were lying.

"Dear! dear!" said the Captain. "Wilson and Tanby! How natural they look! Poor fellows! You'll never tumble up again to the sound of the Bo's'n's whistle, my lads."

"And he'll never pipe any more to your crew," said I, as I thought of the sleeping forms we had left behind us the night before. I stood looking about me. "Captain, there's something queer about this place. It's uncanny, it seems to me. When I left the men here, a half hour ago, there were three—our two men and the HaÏtien, and two graves. Now there is no HaÏtien, and three graves instead of two."

"Lord! you don't say so! Well, I have seen queer things in my time, a sight of queer things. Nothing ever surprises me. Let's give the poor fellows a decent burial and get back to camp. I don't quite like leaving Cynthy with that crazy Bo's'n——"

"We have no spades, Captain," said I.

He saw what I meant, for he turned and looked at the graves.

"How's that?" he asked, jerking his head over his shoulder toward the water.

"The only way now," I answered.

We lifted the poor fellows and laid them gently in the bows side by side, and then pulled for the open water.

The dinghy's painter was lying in the bottom of the boat, and as I rowed the Skipper untwisted and split the rope. Of course, I had known quite well why he lifted two heavy rocks from the beach and laid them under the thwarts. When I had rowed for about ten minutes, the Skipper said, "Way enough!" I trailed my oars, and together we prepared the men for the last sad rites. With one end of a rope around the body of each, and the other fastened securely around one of the rocks, we lowered them one after another into that deep over which for so many years they had sailed happy-go-lucky fellows. As they sank below the surface, the Skipper shifted his squatting position into a kneeling one, raised his eyes to the blue above him, clasped his weather-beaten hands, and said:

"Oh, Thou who holdest the oceans of the earth in the hollow of Thy hands, hold these poor sailors, we pray Thee, within Thy tender keeping, and when the sea gives up its dead, good Lord, and they are called aft to Thy mast, where they must answer up, no shirking, remember the many trials and temptations of poor Jack, dear Father, and judge them as sailors, and not as human beings!"

"Amen!" said I.