The cowboy knew well enough that Jack would not countenance such downright methods of justice as a lynching. Everything depended on it being done without the rover's knowledge, and by hook or by crook Broncho was determined that this snake in Jack's path to happiness should be removed somehow; he relied greatly, however, on being able to bring the bluejacket round to his way of thinking. Over and over again he bitterly reproached himself that he had not aimed to kill, when he let fly the bullet which creased Hawksley's arm. Now that he knew Jack's secret and the reason of those long fits of melancholy, he was set upon removing the cause of them. The man deserved death, he argued; he was a notorious scoundrel, and the fact that he had nearly succeeded in killing Jack was quite reason enough to satisfy the justice of the drop, in the cowboy's easy Western code of laws. However, giving up the discussion for the time, the two agents of justice returned to the group under the trees. "How are you makin' out, mister?" asked the bosun's mate of Jack, as he threw himself down lazily. "First rate," replied the rover cheerily. "By the way, I seem to recall your voice. Were you on the China Station five years ago in the _Diadem_?" "I was that." "Coxswain to old Typhoon Blake?" "Why, that's so." "Remember rescuing a man from a sampan one day up the Shanghai River." "Had a bag of dollars with him? The two Johns tried to lay him out, an' he up-ended one of 'em?" "Yes, that's right. Remember me now?" "W'y, blawst me but you 'as the cut of his jib; but--he weren't on the lower deck, mate. That blighted josser was a reg'lar copper-bottomed swell, an' took 'is chow with old Typhoon." "Well, my name's Jack Derringer." "That's so, that were the name right enuff. I 'eard number one speakin' about 'im. Well, it's a queer old giddy-go-round, this bloomin' world; you gives me ten dollars then, an' now I tips you a drink outer a bally cocoanut." The afternoon passed slowly, Hawksley, scowling and gnawing his lips, lay apart, coining new words to his extensive vocabulary of oaths. Jim and Tari went off on a tour of exploration round the island, whilst Broncho and the bosun's mate sat well out of earshot, a pair of conspirators arguing heatedly, with Hawksley's life hanging on the result. Jack and Loyola under the palms talked fitfully in low tones, with long silences in which an uneasy melancholy and a deep mutual feeling of sad helplessness reigned. CHAPTER IX "THE LYNCHING" With darkness the explorers returned, and also Jack's strange eyesight, much to the amazement and delight of Loyola. The first use the rover made of his recovered vision was to gaze long and earnestly at the woman by his side, and his eyes brightened from a look of keen criticism to a warm glow of deep, hungry tenderness. "Well?" asked Loyola's low voice, as she sat with downcast eyes before the overpowering longing of his gaze.