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It was Kinie, her face showed peeping at them through the branches which her little brown hands were holding back.

“Scat!” cried Harman, shaken out of all other considerations but the thought that she had discovered their whereabouts and might give them away. “Off with you, and back to the village—and if you let a word out of you——”

Before he could finish the branches swayed, and Kinie was gone.

“After her!” cried Davis. “Get hold of her and tell her to spy on the chap, and give us news of what’s going on. Hump yourself!”

Harman, getting on his feet, started off in pursuit, and Davis found himself alone. He could hear the wash of the beach and the far-off voices of the village, and as he sat, putting things together in his mind, the main question that kept recurring was whether Clayton would put out after taking on fruit and water, or whether he would stay.

After that came the question of the pearls. It was six months now since the day he sailed from the atoll, and he was still tinkering about amongst the lesser islands; what had he done with the pearls? He had evidently been to no port of importance where he might have sold them, and if there was reason in anything, there was reason in the supposition that they were on board the Douro.