“They went on snarling and showing their teeth, but not biting,” continued Thalassa, “sorting out the little stones all right, but quarrelling over the bigger.  There was two—­the biggest in the bunch by far—­which they kept putting aside because they couldn’t agree about the sharing of them.  At last it came about that there was only these two big ’uns left, lying like two beans on the bit o’ rock, side by side.  Before I could guess what was likely to happen Turold grabbed them up quick, and put them in his bottle.  ‘These two are mine, Thalassa’s and mine,’ he said.  ’You’ve had your share, Remington.’  Remington sprang from the rock quick as a snake.  ‘One’s mine,’ he said.  But Turold was up as quick.  ‘It’s not for you,’ he says, with his dark smile.  ’We’ll put it against the girl you filched from me, and call it an even deal.  What does a happy lover want with diamonds?’ ‘Damn you!’ cries the other, and hit him in the face.  They both went down, scuffling and panting in the sand.  I stood where I was, for I weren’t going to come between them till I saw how it was going to be.  Presently I could see that Remington was stronger, and that Turold was getting the worst of it.  After a bit Turold called out, ‘Thalassa!’

“I ran down at that fast enough, and got out my knife as I went.  They’d slipped down the sloping beach half-way to the sea, writhing like a couple of the blind-worms that I kept stepping on, going over and over so quick that I couldn’t do anything at first.  But one of them was sobbing in his breath as though he was pretty well finished, and I guessed it was Turold.  Then I saw Remington’s face on top, and before they could swing round again I got a good stroke in his neck where it gleamed white in the moonlight.  The blood jumped out warm on my hand, and he rolled over so quick that I thought I had killed him.  But as I stooped over him he was up like a flash, staggering up the steep beach, his feet plopping and sucking in the water underneath.  Turold was on his feet by that time, breathing hard, getting back his breath.  ‘After him—­quick!’ he says to me, his face black with rage—­’he’s got the diamonds.’

“I ran after him up the beach, but he heard me coming and had the start of me.  He had firm ground under him by then, and was tearing along the rocks towards the path I’d taken them that afternoon, turning round now and again to look back, the blood glistening in the moonlight on his white face.  There we was—­him going higher and higher, me after him, and Turold standing below on the beach, staring up at the two of us.

“Run my best, I couldn’t get near him.  I suppose he thought he was done for if I caught him, and by that time my blood was pretty well up.  I had one pull over him—­I knew the island, and he didn’t.  The path he was taking led to the top of the island, where the crater was, with a kind of wall of rocks round it.  But before you came to that there was a great hole which fell down God Almighty knows how deep, and was supposed to have been another volcano at some time or other.  This hole was divided into two by a narrow ridge running right across it, and the path Remington was on took him straight to the edge.  So he’d either got to go across this ridge when he come to it or turn back and be caught.