I don’t know what they thought had happened to us, the three poor devils there on the jagged coral rock.  At all events the laughter did us good by relieving the tension of our feelings, and when at last we had recovered and the captain was at the wheel again, once more sober as a judge, you couldn’t have believed such an outbreak possible of him.

The Maggie Darling was sailing so fast that it hardly seemed necessary to trouble to call at Harbour Island; but, then, the wind might go down, our adventure was far from over, and gasolene might at any moment be a prime necessity.  So we kept her going, with her beautiful sails filled out against the bluest sky you can dream of, and the ripple singing at her bow—­the loveliest sight and sound in the world for a man who loves boats and the sea.

“Is there anything like it, Tom?” I asked.  “Do you read your Bible?  You should; it’s the greatest book in the world.”

Tom hastened to acquiesce.

“You remember in the Book of Job? Three things are wonderful to me, The way of a ship on the sea, the way of an eagle in the air, and the way of a man with a maid.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Tom, “the way of a ship on the sea—­but the way of a man with a maid—­”

“What’s the matter with that, Tom?”

“They’re all very pretty—­just like the boat; but you’ll not find one near so true.  We’re better without them, if you ask my advice.  A man’s all right as long as he keeps on his boat; but the minute he lands—­the girls and the troubles begin.”

“Ah!  Tom,” I said; “but I think you told me you’ve a family—­”

“Yes, sar, but the only good one amongst them is in the churchyard, this fifteen years.”

“Your wife, Tom?”

“Yes, sar, but she was more than a woman.  She was a saint.  When I talk of women I don’t think of her.  No; God be kind to her, she is a saint, and I only wait around till she calls me.”

“Tom, allow me to shake hands with you,” I said, “and call myself your friend for ever.”

The tears rolled down the old fellow’s cheeks, and I realised how little colour really matters, and how few white men were really as white as Tom.

And so that night we made Harbour Island, and met that welcome that can only be met at the lonely ends of the earth.

The Commandant and the clergyman took me under their wings on the spot, and, though there was a good hotel, the Commandant didn’t consider it good enough for me.

Bless them both!  I hope to be able some day to offer them the kind of hospitality they brought me so generously in both hands; lonely men, serving God and the British Empire, in that apparently God-forsaken outpost of the world.

I liked the attitude they took toward my adventure.  Their comments on “Henry P. Tobias, Jr.” and the paper I had with me, were especially enlightening.

“The black men themselves,” they both agreed, “are all right, except, of course, here and there.  It’s fellows like this precious Tobias, real white trash—­the negroes’ name for them is apt enough—­that are the danger for the friendship of both races.  And it’s the vein of a sort of a literary idealism in a fellow like Tobias that makes him the more dangerous.  He’s not all to the bad—­”