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Rh "No, but with you out of the way, my sister and I might have been murdered more easily. They know the pearls are on the island, because the divers talk. And they know, too, that a white man doesn't go to all this trouble to get them out of the sea for the benefit of his health. They're getting too damned educated, these South Sea niggers. I'm glad he didn't get you, Keith," Chester added suddenly, extending a hand which the new overseer grasped. "We'll nab him, yet, whoever it was. It'll all come out in the washing. But we must keep our eyes peeled, or they'll nab the lot of us."

Chester Trent was visibly agitated. His none-too-steady nerves had been jarred by this startling information. He pulled a flask from his hip pocket.

"Is that the way you met trouble when you first came to Tao Tao?" Keith asked him bluntly.

"You on the water wagon?" Chester queried, with a touch of amusement.

"No, but I haven't begun to make an idiot of myself," Keith replied.

Chester laughed, but he put the flask back in his pocket, unopened. The influence of this big, blunt stranger was one which, curiously enough, did not arouse opposition in him. Not another word was said on the subject, but Chester was conscious of having been reined in, firmly and wisely.

After the swift coming of tropic night, the Kestrel quietly slid away from her anchorage; and when