“You can kiss the Book on it,” replied he.  “Down by the line in that little swab of a sand island.  My eye, but don’t I remember!  I sweated my liver white.”

They smoked in silence.

“That’s a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor’s—­that stockade-like,” ventured Solomon, after a little.

“He doesn’t want any intrusion,” I said.  “These scientific experiments are very delicate.”

“Quite like,” he commented non-committally.

We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain Selover’s directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship.  He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty.

“I’ll just see to your shore quarters,” he squeaked.  “You empty her.”

All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove, landing the contents of the hold.  These, by good fortune, we did not have to carry over the neck of land, for just above the gravel beach was a wide ledge on which we could pile the stores.  We ate aboard, and so had no opportunity of seeing what Captain Selover and his men were about, until evening.  Then we discovered that they had collected and lowered to the beach a quantity of stateroom doors from the wreck, and had trundled the galley stove to the edge where it awaited our assistance.  We hitched a cable to it, and let it down gently.  The Nigger was immensely pleased.  After some experiment he got it to draw, and so cooked us our supper on it.  After supper, Captain Selover rowed himself back to the ship.

“Eagen,” he had said, drawing me aside, “I’m going to leave you with them.  It’s better that one of us—­I think as owner I ought to be aboard——­”

“Of course, sir,” said I, “it’s the only proper place for you.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he rejoined, apparently relieved.  “And anyway,” he cried, with a burst of feeling, “I hate the gritty feeling of it under my feet!  Solid oak’s the only walking for a man.”

He left me hastily, as though a trifle ashamed.  I thought he seemed depressed, even a little furtive, and yet on analysis I could discover nothing definite on which to base such a conclusion.

It was rather a feeling of difference from the man I had known.  In my fatigue it seemed hardly worth thinking about.

The men had rolled themselves in their blankets, tired with the long day.

Next morning Captain Selover was ashore early.  He had quite recovered his spirits, and offered me a dram of French brandy, which I refused.  We worked hard again; again the master returned at night to his vessel, this time without a word to any of us; again the men, drugged by toil, turned in early and slept like the dead.

We became entangled in a mesh of days like these, during which things were accomplished, but in which was no space for anything but the tasks imposed upon us.  The men for the most part had little to say.

“Por Dios, eet is too mooch work!” sighed Perdosa once.