nearly a minute he gazed at them, the while he struggled to
stifle the awful fear within him. In the Gibney veins there
flowed not a drop of craven blood, but the hideous prospect
before him was almost more than the brave commodore could bear.
Death, quick and bloody, had no terrors for him, but a finish
like this--a slow finish--thirst, starvation, heat----

He gulped and thoughtfully rubbed the knuckles of his right hand
where the skin was barked off. He thought of the silly joke he
and McGuffey had thought to perpetrate on Captain Scraggs by
leading him up against a beating at the hands of a cannibal king,
and with the thought came a grim, hard chuckle, though there was
the look of a thousand devils in his eyes.

"Well, boys," he said huskily, "who's looney now?"

"What's to be done?" asked McGuffey.

"Well, Mac, old sporty boy, I guess there ain't much to do except
to make up our minds to die like gentlemen. If I was ever fooled
by a man in my life, I was fooled by that doggone mate. I thought
he'd tote square with the syndicate. I sure did."

For a long time McGuffey gazed seaward. He was slower than his
shipmates in making up his mind that the mate had really deserted
them and sailed away with the fortunes of the syndicate. Of the
three, however, the stoical engineer accepted the situation with
the best grace. He spurned the white sand with his foot and faced
Mr. Gibney and Captain Scraggs with just the suspicion of a grin
on his homely face.