"But I'm going back after him," the sailor stubbornly proceeded. "I'll turn any knife out of his hand." It was evident that he was laboring under an intense growing excitement and anger. "The only idiot's not on land," Woolfolk told him. "Where's the water cask you took ashore?" "Broken." "How?" "I'll tell you fast enough. There was nobody about when I went up to the house, although there was a chair rocking on the porch as if a person had just left. I knocked at the door; it was open, and I was certain that I heard someone inside, but nobody answered. Then after a bit I went around back. The kitchen was open, too, and no one in sight. I saw the water cistern and thought I'd fill up, when you could say something afterward. I did, and was rolling the cask about the house when this--loggerhead came out of the bushes. He wanted to know what I was getting away with, and I explained, but it didn't suit him. He said I might be telling facts and again I mightn't. I saw there was no use talking, and started rolling the cask again; but he put his foot on it, and I pushed one way and he the other----" "And between you, you stove in the cask," Woolfolk interrupted. "That's it," Poul Halvard answered concisely. "Then I got mad, and offered to beat in his face, but he had a knife. I could have broken it out of his grip--I've done it before in a place or two--but I thought I'd better come aboard and report before anything general began." John Woolfolk was momentarily at a loss to establish the identity of Halvard's assailant. He soon realized, however, that it must be Nicholas, whom he had never seen, and who had blown such an imperative summons on the conch the night before. Halvard's temper was communicated to him; he moved abruptly to where the tender was fastened. "Put me ashore," he directed. He would make it clear that his man was not to be interrupted in the execution of his orders, and that his property could not be arbitrarily destroyed. When the tender ran upon the beach and had been secured, Halvard started to follow him, but Woolfolk waved him back. There was a stir on the portico as he approached, the flitting of an unsubstantial form; but, hastening, John Woolfolk arrested Lichfield Stope in the doorway. "Morning," he nodded abruptly. "I came to speak to you about a water cask of mine." The other swayed like a thin, grey column of smoke. "Ah, yes," he pronounced with difficulty. "Water cask----" "It was broken here a little while back." At the suggestion of violence such a pitiable panic fell upon the older man that Woolfolk halted. Lichfield Stope raised his hands as if to ward off the mere impact of the words themselves; his face was stained with the thin red tide of congestion. "You have a man named Nicholas," Woolfolk proceeded. "I should like to see him."