Andrew looked. Four men with their trousers rolled above their knees and their legs stained with dye-water were churning the liquor in the beating-vat with a lever that had two bottomless square buckets at either end; and a younger man, at the side, was stooping over occasionally to dip out some of the liquor in a wooden cup and test it. Andrew caught his breath as he looked at this man; he thought he had never seen so fine a human creature. The fellow was of the middle height and seemed of Andrew's years--but so perfectly and aptly proportioned was he that Andrew felt himself clumsy and rudely-fashioned in comparison. The sun, which had fairly blackened the skins of many of the colonists, had only browned him to the deep tawniness of fine Spanish leather, his face wore the aloof dignity of a sombre prince, and every movement of his body was as deft as a gymnast's. Andrew could have visualized him far more easily dispensing justice from a stone chair of state or riding a horse to war clad in antique armor, than stirring indigo-muck. He said something of the sort. "A good man, though sullen like most of them," Dr. Gentian agreed. "All the Mahonese are a fine-looking lot. Meaninglessly fine. The Greeks are much sharper. But that fellow knows his business. Few of them can judge a test rightly--and judgment's the secret of indigo-culture--for if the beating and churning there is stopped too soon some of the dye-matter stays in solution and if beat too long it begins to dissolve again. Either way you get bad indigo. This is the second cutting now--we hope for five cuttings this season if all goes well. The profit will mean we can finish our fort and add to the sugar-works. The fort will lie over there--it commands the wharves and the storehouses--" Andrew looked across fields checkered with irrigation and beheld vast raw foundations of coquina. "I should not have thought you needed so large a defensive work in a peaceable colony," he said, somewhat astonished. He had already noted the colony's guard-house with its garrison of eight bored soldiers--but this new work would hold a company, at least, and was planned for cannon. "We had trouble here two years ago," said Dr. Gentian briefly. "The ringleaders were hanged in St. Augustine. And then--most of the Indians are peaceable enough--but Cowkeeper, the Creek Chief, is a mischief-maker. Ah, Mr. Cave," as a heavy-set man in his thirties, with a red, sweating face and odd, crumpled-looking ears, came toward them with his broad hat in his hand. "This is Mr. Beard, Mr. Cave--the young gentleman I was speaking of before I went to St. Augustine. Mr. Cave, our chief overseer, Mr. Beard--" "Servant, I'm sure," grunted Mr. Cave in a piggy voice and stared at Andrew intently. His eyes were a dull, hard blue, with reddened rings about them, and Andrew felt uncomfortable under their gaze. "Mr. Cave comes from an English family," said Dr. Gentian pleasantly. "He is my right hand."