"No, there ain't no cows a-muckin' around; but the milk here grows up aloft, on them trees." "Cocoanuts!" exclaimed the boy eagerly, with a watering mouth. "That's what," replied Bill Benson heartily. "Like one, young 'un?" "Aye, that I would." At which the bosun's mate got good-humouredly to his feet and strolled off into the low brush. Presently he reappeared with his arms full of ripe, juicy fruit. "Wot oh, Aunt Sally!" he cried cheerfully. "Two shies a penny! 'minds one er 'ome, don't it?" In a few moments they were all quenching their thirst with the delicious milky juice. "My! that's somethin' like a drink!" sighed Jim, drawing a long breath. "It shore beats any bug-juice I ever pours down my throat," commented Broncho appreciatively. "It 'as its good p'ints," observed Bill Benson. "You can lap it down till y'r back teeth are awash without acquirin' a cordite mouth, but it falls considerable flat on the palate after a week o' nothin' else. There ain't no bite to it. It's good enough for babbies, but I'm gettin' that sick of it I'd as soon suck bilgewater." CHAPTER VII "LOYOLA" Meanwhile Jack wandered off along the shore with bent head and stumbling feet, not knowing nor caring where he went, for his brain was seething in a ferment. The news which Bill Benson had given him racked the distracted man almost beyond the limit of endurance. His heart leaped at one moment to a fierce, delirious joy, to be cast down the next into the very depths of despair. Then a rage seized him, a wild, ungovernable fury, which shook his weak, overstrained body to the very core, till he was forced to sink upon the sand from sheer physical inability to remain erect. Hot, passionate words rushed in a low, hoarse whisper from his cracked lips; the blind eyes sparkled with a gleam of almost madness, and the emaciated hands clenched and unclenched ceaselessly. Slowly the paroxysm passed; a look of dreadful sadness came into the eyes, and a long, dry sob broke huskily from his lips. "What shall I do? Oh, God! what shall I do?" he wailed miserably. "Kill the devil!" whispered a voice within him. "No! no!" interposed another. "Let him be. It's none of your business. She made her bed and must lie on it. She cast you aside, and now you have no right to interfere." "But she loved me--I know she did. Even at that last meeting, when I like a fool lost my temper, even then I saw the love in her eyes," he whispered softly; then with a deep, bitter groan, "My God! why did she do it? Why did she do it? And that beast, of all men. And now--what now, I wonder?" The rover sat silent in an unnatural calm. He was hidden from the group of men round the whaleboat by a clump of cocoa-palms, jutting down on to a sort of promontory from the main grove.