"--And now for one thing more, Foe--and it'll make you squirm by and by! Like most deaf men he was a bit suspicious: and looking at you sideways as you came on board--what with one thing and another, not liking missionaries as a line in trade, and, in particular, mistrusting the cut of _your_ jib, he thought things over a bit and altered his helm. "--I'll explain. You see, you not only came aboard looking what you are, but you came aboard fairly slimed over, in addition, with all that had ever been told or guessed against Buck Vliet's missionary. The stories didn't agree about his sect: but they agreed that Vliet, though a ruffian, hadn't marooned the man just for fun--that he must have been a hard case somehow. The stories might vary concerning Vliet's reasons: but they agreed that the man hadn't come to it by sheer over-prayerfulness: and the conclusion was--reasonable or unreasonable--that you, Foe, must have been a bad potato somehow, or at best a severe trial, if so hardened a stomach as Vliet's hadn't been able to keep you down. Worse; he guessed you for a spy. "--Here, Sir Roderick and Mr. Collingwood, I must tell you that Vliet and Hales, as masters in this knock-about off-island trade, had grown to be rival kings in their way, and Hales in his brooding fashion as jealous as fire. From all I've heard, Vliet hadn't the ambition to be properly jealous: all _he_ objected to was his business being cut. "--Vliet was an old man--a regular hoary sinner, who kept his trade secrets by a very simple method. He stocked his crews entirely with lads of his own begetting. White, black, he didn't care how many wives he carried to sea, or how much of a family wash he carried in the shrouds on a fine day. He ran his trade on secrecy and close family limitations. He had no range. His joy was to have a corner unknown to a soul else in the world. Fat, lazy, wicked, and sly-- that was Vliet. He belonged to the old school. "--Now, for years, Hales--of the new school, and challenger--had been chasing after a rumour that chased after Vliet from port to port--a rumour that Vliet drew on an uncharted island, in those latitudes, known only to himself and to so much of his progeny as the old Solomon didn't mistrust enough to lose overboard. . . . Well, the belief at Valparaiso is that old Buck Vliet, with his schooner--on which he grudged a penny for repairs--had found an ocean grave at last, somewhere. The guess is that he overdid the _Two Brothers_ in the end, being careless of warnings, with a top-hamper of wives. There is also a legend--likely invented to account for the name of his schooner--that he left all his money to a twin brother in business in Salt Lake City, and that the brother and his brother's wives had fitted out a new schooner to hunt for the island's whereabouts.