"--A place so rich as that, unknown, uncharted!--reeking with copra, not to mention other wealth--fairly asking to be sold and turned over to a government, to a syndicate, to develop it! Man! you and Hales had a million safe between you when you boarded the schooner; and I can see Hales's mind at work when he spotted your boat and sized up the share he was losing by your turning up. The marvel to me is, he didn't turn you a blind eye. But Hales is a humane man. He did time in his youth, but he's not the sort that you are, Foe--the sort that could leave a man to die solitary and forsaken. Belike, too, the prize was so great in his grasp that he didn't care how much, in reason, might run through his fingers. "--Listen! When you sighted him, he had made a careful offing of the southern reefs, and had hauled up close to his wind. Where do you suppose he was bound? He was fetching up to beat back to Valparaiso. Being Yankee born and not a stocking-banker like old Buck Vliet, he was all for Valparaiso with an island to sell to the Chilian Government, and a concession and a syndicate fair in view. This cargo of beads, cheap guns, sham jewellery, canned meats, and rum, that he had aboard for the islands, would keep: the rum would even be improved by a little Christian delay. But, if he sank it all, all was nothing to the secret he carried. "--And then you hove on his view, for partner: and he took you in. . . . I hope you'll remember him gratefully after this, Foe. He chose to sight you--and he hadn't heard the dog. If he had, it wasn't in him to guess that you had left any better than a dog behind. "--Then you fairly flummoxed him. Missionary though you were, he'd accepted you as prospective shareholder. It wasn't for him to guess that you dared not go back.