The two voices flowed on.  He did not listen, but watched the phosphorus welling soft and turbulent in the wake, and far off, in glimpses of the tropic light, the great Dragon weltering on the face of the waters.  The shape glimmered forth, died away, like a prodigy.  How ran the verse?

“Ich lieg’ und besitze. 
Lass mich schlafen.”

“And yet,” thought the young man, “I have one pearl from his hoard.”  That girl was right:  like Siegfried tempered in the grisly flood, the raw boy was turning into a man, seasoned and invulnerable.

Heywood was calling to him:—­

“You must go Home with us.  Do you hear?  I’ve made a wonderful plan—­with the captain’s fortune!  Dear old Kneebone.”

A small white heap across the deck began to rise.

“How often,” complained a voice blurred with sleep, “how often must I tell ye—­wake me, unless the ship—­chart’s all—­Good God!”

At the captain’s cry, those who lay in darkness under the thatched roof began to mutter, to rise, and grope out into the trembling light, with sleepy cries of joy.