“Come on up here, can’t ye?”

“What ye want, Thirkle?  No funny business for me.  Speak out what ye want.  Ye ain’t goin’ to do me dirt, be ye, Thirkle—­not Reddy?”

He was whining now, and he was in terror of Thirkle.

“Oh, shut up!” growled Thirkle.  “It’s nothing, but it give me a turn.”

“What was it, Thirkle?  What frightened ye?”

“I thought I put my hand into a mess of hair and—­”

“Oh, ho!” laughed Petrak.  “That’s a ball of spun yarn Bucky left.  It’s naught but spun yarn, Thirkle.  I minded it myself,” and Petrak turned to the block again.

Thirkle moved toward the boat, saying something about how he was getting old and nervous, and I saw him bend over the gunwale.  I watched him closely, for a hope had sprung up in my withered heart—­a hope which I hardly dared tell myself might possibly be true, after the train of disasters which had overtaken me since I went aboard the Kut Sang.

I saw a form spurt up out of the boat, and, as it arose, like the fountain that pops out of the sea after a shell strikes, there came a heavy blow and a deep-throated grunt, followed by a hiss that was merged with a shrill death-cry.

“Black devil!  Black devil!” said Thirkle in a quiet, matter-of-fact way, and then he began to sob and squirm; but the figure that had come up like a jack-in-the-box held him pinned across the gunwale, with his shoulders and arms inside the boat, and his legs writhing and thrashing in the dead palm-leaves.

“What’s wrong, Thirkle?  What’s wrong?” wailed Petrak.

He stood a second waiting for an answer, and then he started for the boat, but stopped at the edge of the shadows.

“What’s wrong, Thirkle?  Sing out, can’t ye?  What’s gone amiss?”

Thirkle’s legs were quiet now, but I could hear his heavy breathing, and it reminded me of the steam exhaust from an ice-factory.

In spite of the mystery about me, I set my brain to work trying to remember what particular ice-factory sounded just like Thirkle’s breathing.

“I’ll hold him, Rajah,” said Captain Riggs.  “Go get the other,” and the figure of the Malay boy sprang from the boat and leaped toward Petrak.  The little red-headed man gave an incoherent gurgle, and he took to his heels down the beach.  Rajah let him go, and ran to me, where I was tossing about like a dying fish.  He hissed to me and swiftly cut me free, and I rushed to the boats, with a tangle of rope still clinging to my feet.

“Captain Riggs,” I cried, “it is I, Trenholm!” and he lifted his hand from the shoulder of the dying Thirkle and took mine.

“All’s well,” he said calmly.  “Glad to see ye alive, Mr. Trenholm.  I gave ye up, and we came back here and went to sleep in the boat, but Rajah was on watch when he heard ye coming back, and I guess he’s made an end of this beauty.  Here, strike a match and let’s look at him.”