The ringing of the big bell aroused him.  He opened his eyes and found that he was on the couch indoors.  A glance at the clock told him that it was six, and from the direction the sun’s rays streamed into the room he knew that it was morning.  At first he puzzled over something untoward he was sure had happened.  Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging, and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt’s revolver.  The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that flashed beneath the level brows.  She it must have been who had just rung the bell.  The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched dizzily around him.  He was still sitting there, holding on, with eyes closed, striving to master his giddiness, when he heard her voice.

“You’ll lie right down again, sir,” she said.

It was sharply imperative, a voice used to command.  At the same time one hand pressed him back toward the pillow while the other caught him from behind and eased him down.

“You’ve been unconscious for twenty-four hours now,” she went on, “and I have taken charge.  When I say the word you’ll get up, and not until then.  Now, what medicine do you take?—­quinine?  Here are ten grains.  That’s right.  You’ll make a good patient.”

“My dear madame,” he began.

“You musn’t speak,” she interrupted, “that is, in protest.  Otherwise, you can talk.”

“But the plantation—­”

“A dead man is of no use on a plantation.  Don’t you want to know about me?  My vanity is hurt.  Here am I, just through my first shipwreck; and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your miserable plantation.  Can’t you see that I am just bursting to tell somebody, anybody, about my shipwreck?”

He smiled; it was the first time in weeks.  And he smiled, not so much at what she said, as at the way she said it—­the whimsical expression of her face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of humour that drew in at the corners.  He was curiously wondering as to what her age was, as he said aloud: 

“Yes, tell me, please.”

“That I will not—­not now,” she retorted, with a toss of the head.  “I’ll find somebody to tell my story to who does not have to be asked.  Also, I want information.  I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to turn the hands to, and that is about all.  I don’t understand the ridiculous speech of your people.  What time do they knock off?”

“At eleven—­go on again at one.”

“That will do, thank you.  And now, where do you keep the key to the provisions?  I want to feed my men.”

“Your men!” he gasped.  “On tinned goods!  No, no.  Let them go out and eat with my boys.”

Her eyes flashed as on the day before, and he saw again the imperative expression on her face.