Floyd did not take the trouble to speak to Mountain Joe about Cardon's presence on board.

Cardon got into the upper bunk at about eleven o'clock and went promptly to sleep. As for Floyd, he could neither sleep nor lie still. During his stay in Sydney, he had been restless enough at times, but he had never felt like this. Ever since his departure from the island the idea of Isbel had followed him and been with him now clear and close, now more remote and partly obscured from him by everyday affairs.

To-night she haunted him.

All sorts of fears and imaginings rose in his mind. He had never known the extent of his love for her till just this moment, on the eve of his return. Suppose when he got back he found she was not there. Suppose the natives had revolted again; suppose that Schumer, playing every one false and on the chance of a passing ship, had gone off from the island, taking the pearls with him and Isbel. Suppose—suppose——There was no end to the suppositions that rose up before his mind as he paced the floor of the main cabin and listened to Cardon snoring in his bunk.

Cardon, in his idea of passing himself off as bag[Pg 253]gage, had not reckoned on his capacity for snoring. Floyd, however, did not trouble about it; even if Hakluyt were suddenly to come on board and see Cardon in the flesh, let alone hearing him snoring, it would not much matter.

In his present frame of mind, he would have bundled Hakluyt down the main hatch and closed it on him had he appeared to give any trouble.

He came on deck, leaving Cardon to his dreams, and paced the planks, still engaged in suppositions as to Isbel.

Then the night wind, balmy and warm, blew the evil fancies from his mind and restored its tone. Nothing could have happened in the few weeks that had elapsed since his departure. Isbel was well able to take care of herself, and as for the natives, they were not likely to try any more tricks with Sru dead and Schumer in command. The real danger was to come, and its name was Luckman. That was nothing. With Cardon at his elbow, he felt able to cope with a hundred Luckmans and Schumers. He was forewarned. Fate had declared for him—or so it seemed.

He remained on deck till dawn began to break upon the harbor, then he went down and woke Cardon.

Before going down, he had stirred up the cook and ordered coffee to be sent to the main cabin; and while they were drinking this they heard a boat coming alongside, and Mountain Joe shouted down the hatchway that the pilot was coming on board.

"I reckon I'd better stay hid till we are clear of the harbor," said Cardon. "There's no use in running[Pg 254] risks. Up with you, and interview the pilot and get the anchor out of the mud as quick as you can. Give me a word when you have dropped him. You won't have far to look for me."

Floyd went up and found the pilot already on deck. The wind was fair; all the port regulations had been complied with, and there was nothing to hold them but the anchor.

Cardon, down below, could hear the clank of the windlass pawls as the slack of the anchor chain was being hove in, the feet of the fellows on deck running to orders, their voices as they hauled on the halyards, and then again the welcome music of the pawls as the anchor was dragged from the mud and hauled, gray and dripping, to the catheads.

Instantly the schooner took the feel of a live ship, to use Cardon's words. She heeled ever so little, and, as he lay in the bunk, he could hear the warble of the water against her planking, to say nothing of the rattle of the rudder chain and the occasional creak of woodwork acknowledging mast pressure and strain.

After a while Cardon, tired with the stuffy air of the cabin, dropped asleep. When he awoke, Floyd was standing beside him, and by the movement of the cabin he knew that the Southern Cross had cleared the harbor and was making her bow to the Pacific.

"How about the pilot?" asked Cardon, rubbing his eyes.

"Dropped him long ago," replied Floyd. "Hop out and come on deck. The fellow is laying the things for breakfast, and a breath of air will do you good."

Cardon slipped from the bunk and came on deck.

A brave breeze was blowing, and the sea, roughed[Pg 255] up beneath the morning sun, had a hard, gemlike look. Foam caps showed, and in the west the setting moon hung, ghostlike, in a sky that suggested millions and millions of miles of depth and blueness.

All the east was hard and bright; all the west was blue and subtle and tender; and between the east and the west lay the sea like a country carved from sapphire and tourmaline, with the green hills of earth sinking slowly but surely away beyond the foam in the schooner's wake.

Then, as the sun mounted higher, the sea lost its look of solidity, cast it back on the land, now remote and hard, black fish came walloping along as if racing the rushing schooner. The wind, freshening, blew in great, steady gusts, filling the bellying canvas and pressing like a great hand so that the lee rail was almost awash and the spray came inboard, fresh, like the very breath of the sea.

Cardon, with his hand on the ratlines, stood taking it all in while Floyd stood beside him, his clothes flapping round him in the flogging wind.

Mountain Joe was at the wheel. He showed no surprise at Cardon's presence on board, nor did any of the others. They evidently looked on him as a passenger or supercargo of some sort approved of by Hakluyt.

"She's a good sea boat," said Cardon, "and she seems to steer well; but what in the nation can have become of Luckman?"

"That's what's bothering me," said Floyd. "I've been trying to figure the thing out ever since we got the anchor on board. He can't be stowed away anywhere. He's not in the fo'c'sle, for I went down there[Pg 256] under the pretense of seeing whether the hammocks were all right. He's not in the galley, he's not in the cabins, and he's not in the hold. He's not on board, in fact. Well, what is the meaning of it? The only thing I can imagine is that the affair has fallen through and he's gone off with the money Hakluyt gave him—either that or I must have imagined the conversation I heard."

"Oh, I reckon that wasn't any imagination of yours," said Cardon. "There was lots of reason why Hakluyt should have put the business against you. No; the only explanation is that the thing, as you say, must have fallen through. Luckman funked it and took his hook with the money. That's the only possible thing that can have happened. But it leaves the position just the same as far as you and I are concerned."

"How do you mean?"

"Just this: The plot was made against you, and it wasn't made in Sydney. It was all arranged on the island between Schumer and Hakluyt."

"Yes, it must have been."

"Well, then, the question turns up, are you going to go on working with this Schumer, who has made all the arrangements for doing you in and who would have done you in had not the thing fallen through?"

"Never!" said Floyd. "I have finished with Schumer."

"Oh, no, you haven't!" replied Cardon. "Not by a long chalk. There remains the question of the pearls, and the question of punishment. Schumer has got to pay for his villainy, and pay through the nose.[Pg 257] But there's the fellow bringing breakfast aft. Let's go down, and we can talk the matter out below."

They went down, and when breakfast was over Cardon lit a pipe, settled himself comfortably on the couch at the starboard side of the cabin, and, after a moment's silence, turned to Floyd, who was lighting a cigar.

"You have got to get even with Schumer, and from all you have told me of Schumer you will have your work cut out. I know the type. The Pacific is full of it. This chap is a trader and a sailor and a fighter all rolled in one. I know the sort—able to do anything, from playing a tune on a fiddle to playing a dirty trick. I know them."

"Don't you be too sure," said Floyd. "This man Schumer is not one of the ordinary sort of traders and swindlers. He's a very big man. He ought to have been anything, and the wonder to me is he has never risen to something in the world better than what he is."

"There you have his weakness," said Cardon. "I admit he may be a big man, as you say; and yet, as you say, he is only a little one as far as the world is concerned. There's something wrong somewhere in his make-up. He doesn't drink?"

"Not he!"

"Well, there's some crack in him we must try and feel for. I expect the chap is such a rightdown wrong one that he has failed in life just because of that. I don't say I'm not a failure in my way, but I have failed mostly through taking things easy and trusting in men. But Schumer hasn't those weaknesses, if I can judge by what you have told me. No; I suspect[Pg 258] his disease has been a pretty general one. He's a wrong un. I'm not a man given to moralizing, but I've seen a lot of the world, and I've seen that men who don't run straight don't get on. It's funny, but they don't. Now look at old man Schumer's case. He fell in with a pearl lagoon; he has taken twenty thousand pounds' worth of pearls out of it, and maybe more by this. He had a partner named Floyd. He couldn't run straight with that partner, but must lay plans for his wiping out. Floyd discovers his trick, and now Schumer is going to lose pearls and lagoon and all; and when he's lost them he will go back to his old way of life with his feathers clipped, and men will say: 'I can't understand that Schumer; he ought to have been anything, and yet there he is bumming around in bars.' That's what they will say. Honesty is the best policy, and that's God's truth and no copybook story, and that's what I'm going to teach Schumer."

"But, look here, you say he is going to lose pearls and lagoon and all——"

"I? He may keep the lagoon—we only want the pearls."

"Yes, but——"

"I know what you are going to say—we have to get them before we keep them. I know. The thing to worry out is how we are to get the weather gauge on him. You have taken me into this affair as a partner, offering me half your share. I don't want that. I want Schumer's share. The man is a murderer, and deserves hanging. I am only going to fire him, but I admit the thing will be difficult.

"If we sail into the lagoon and declare war openly[Pg 259] with him, he'll fight, and he'll be backed by all those natives he has got there."

"He will, and besides there's the—the girl."

"Just so; you don't want her injured."

"Cardon," said Floyd, "I tell you the truth as between man and man. She's everything. I don't care a straw about the pearls, about money, about Schumer. I don't care about life itself where she's concerned. She's the only thing I have ever cared for really."

"And yet," cut in Cardon, "if you care for her like that, it's all the more important for you not to be done out over the pearls. Pearls are money. Well, do you think you............