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100 for my liking," said Joan. "It would not surprise me in the least to hear that he has one of our hands here in his pay."

"It may be Isa, the diver who didn't stop at Tamba when the other two deserted," Chester declared. "I've suspected something of the sort all the time. He's a wicked-looking brute, with his one eye. The other got poked out while he was having a fight, and I'll bet it was no more than he deserved. He's a wonderful chap at pearling, and for that reason I was glad he didn't go over to Moniz, but we've got to watch him."

"Still," said Keith, "I don't see how Isa could have got in touch with Moniz. It's twenty miles from here to Tamba, and even a nigger would jib at swimming that distance, because the currents are tricky among these islands."

"There isn't a boat on Tao Tao that Isa could have managed by himself, so he never rowed across," Chester put in.

"True. But he could swim out to the reef, couldn't he?" said Joan. "Moniz was there several nights, you know, and a three-mile swim would mean nothing to a man like Isa."

"That's a likely explanation, sis," the girl's brother agreed, "providing Isa is the culprit. I don't quite see what Moniz's game is, but I don't like to feel so much treachery around. Next thing we shall have all the niggers murdering us in our