He was still dimly conscious of the island, but a queer dream texture interwove with his sensations.  Once again it was the night when he and Hooker had hit upon the Chinamen’s secret; he saw the moonlit trees, the little fire burning, and the black figures of the three Chinamen—­silvered on one side by moonlight, and on the other glowing from the firelight—­and heard them talking together in pigeon-English—­for they came from different provinces.  Hooker had caught the drift of their talk first, and had motioned to him to listen.  Fragments of the conversation were inaudible, and fragments incomprehensible.  A Spanish galleon from the Philippines hopelessly aground, and its treasure buried against the day of return, lay in the background of the story; a shipwrecked crew thinned by disease, a quarrel or so, and the needs of discipline, and at last taking to their boats never to be heard of again.  Then Chang-hi, only a year since, wandering ashore, had happened upon the ingots hidden for two hundred years, had deserted his junk, and reburied them with infinite toil, single-handed but very safe.  He laid great stress on the safety—­it was a secret of his.  Now he wanted help to return and exhume them.  Presently the little map fluttered and the voices sank.  A fine story for two, stranded British wastrels to hear!  Evans’ dream shifted to the moment when he had Chang-hi’s pigtail in his hand.  The life of a Chinaman is scarcely sacred like a European’s.  The cunning little face of Chang-hi, first keen and furious like a startled snake, and then fearful, treacherous, and pitiful, became overwhelmingly prominent in the dream.  At the end Chang-hi had grinned, a most incomprehensible and startling grin.  Abruptly things became very unpleasant, as they will do at times in dreams.  Chang-hi gibbered and threatened him.  He saw in his dream heaps and heaps of gold, and Chang-hi intervening and struggling to hold him back from it.  He took Chang-hi by the pig-tail—­how big the yellow brute was, and how he struggled and grinned!  He kept growing bigger, too.  Then the bright heaps of gold turned to a roaring furnace, and a vast devil, surprisingly like Chang-hi, but with a huge black tail, began to feed him with coals.  They burnt his mouth horribly.  Another devil was shouting his name:  “Evans, Evans, you sleepy fool!”—­or was it Hooker?

He woke up.  They were in the mouth of the lagoon.

“There are the three palm-trees.  It must be in a line with that clump of bushes,” said his companion.  “Mark that.  If we, go to those bushes and then strike into the bush in a straight line from here, we shall come to it when we come to the stream.”

They could see now where the mouth of the stream opened out.  At the sight of it Evans revived.  “Hurry up, man,” he said, “or by heaven I shall have to drink sea water!” He gnawed his hand and stared at the gleam of silver among the rocks and green tangle.

Presently he turned almost fiercely upon Hooker.  “Give me the paddle,” he said.