"—Listen, you Foe! While I was lying sick, and you neglecting the look-out, Hales made our island, and anchored in the bay. While I was lying sick, and you neglecting the look-out, Hales made our island, that had been his dream for years; landed there, or on the far side, took its bearings to a hair, of course, and went ashore with a party to prospect. What do you say to that?"
"I say," answered Foe, still languidly, shifting his head a little on the cushion, "that I always told you we were on the wrong side of the island, and that you would never listen."
"They landed, anyway," pursued Farrell; "and for a whole day, after watering, they explored. They never got over the crest that looked down on our camp."
"And if they had they would never have seen us," said Foe, responding like a man in a dream. "You had chosen the site too cleverly; the fern-brake would have hidden us, anyway. Let that pass."
"But there was the bonfire and the look-out, both unattended."
"Oh, if we're to start re-arguing arguments that kept us tired for about three years," answered Foe, "you built the bonfire on the wrong slope, as I always told you. And I'd cut down your flagstaff."
"We won't quarrel about that, since here we are," Farrell retorted with a savage grin. "So I'll drop it and get on with the story. And the next thing to be mentioned in the story, Foe, is that for a clever man, you're about the biggest fool alive. You have no end of knowledge in you, which I admired on the island. The way you found all kinds of plants and things and turned them to account, and explained to me how traders and practical chemists could make fortunes out of them—why, it was wonderful. But it wasn't so wonderful to me as that, with all this knowledge, you'd never turned it to account, so to speak, when, with a third of it, at your age, I'd have been a millionaire. And the ways and manners of a gentleman you had, too; which I could easier set about copying—as I did. It won't bring you much comfort to know that, half the time, I was sucking education out of you, grinning inwardly and thinking, 'Now, my fine hater, the more you're taking the superior line with me the more I'm your pupil all the time; the more you're giving me what I'll find priceless, one of these days, if ever we get back upon London pavements.' In the blindness of your hatred you never guessed that Peter Farrell, all through life, might have had a long way with him—a way of looking ahead—and all to better himself. You never guessed that, all the time, I was letting you teach me.
"—But in practical matters—in all that counts first with a business man—I saw pretty early that you were little better than a fool. Yet I couldn't have believed you or any man such a fool as you showed yourself on the I'll Away: and even you couldn't have missed sensing it but for one thing—you couldn't dare return to the island.
"—A place so rich as that, unknown, uncharted!—reeking with copra, not to mention other wealth—fairly asking to be sold and turned over to a government, to a syndicate, to develop it! Man! you and Hales had a million safe between you when you boarded the schooner; and I can see Hales's mind at work when he spotted your boat and sized up the share he was losing by your turning up. The marvel to me is, he didn't turn you a blind eye. But Hales is a humane man. He did time in his youth, but he's not the sort that you are, Foe—the sort that could leave a man to die solitary and forsaken. Belike, too, the prize was so great in his grasp that he didn't care how much, in reason, might run through his fingers.
"—Listen! When you sighted him, he had made a careful offing of the southern reefs, and had hauled up close to his wind. Where do you suppose he was bound? He was fetching up to beat back to Valparaiso. Being Yankee born and not a stocking-banker like old Buck Vliet, he was all for Valparaiso with an island to sell to the Chilian Government, and a concession and a syndicate fair in view. This cargo of beads, cheap guns, sham jewellery, canned meats, and rum, that he had aboard for the islands, would keep: the rum would even be improved by a little Christian delay. But, if he sank it all, all was nothing to the secret he carried.