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“Oh, close up!” said Davis. “You get arguing when a chap ought to be thinking. Wait till he is skinned before you talk of Providence. We haven’t got the hide yet.”

“No, but we will,” replied the other, settling himself for a snooze.

Towards dark, awakened by Davis, he went off through the trees to prospect.

Then blackness came as if turned on with a switch, blackness that gradually died to starlight as the eyes grew accustomed to the change. Starlight that filled the woods with the eeriest forms made of foliage and shadow, while here and there stars and constellations hung themselves amidst the branches—the Cross in a tamarisk tree and Canopus on the top bough of a screw pine.

To Davis, watching and meditating, suddenly appeared Harman, breathless.

“We’re dished,” cried the latter, “dished lovely! The Douro crowd are ashore down to the ship’s cat, and they’re all stuffin’ themselves and fillin’ up with the drink.”

Davis whistled.

“Haven’t they left an anchor watch on her?”

“Devil a one!” said Harman. “She’s watching herself. Well, what do you say to that?”