"We must try not to dwell upon that," I told her. "Our problem is to live from day to day."
"But there will come a day," she asserted. "I can see it in Billy's eyes, when I can get him to look at me."
"Ouch!" I said, purposely letting a crab nip my finger for the sake of making a diversion. But the tribe to which Miss Edith belongs rejoices in its ability to cling, limpet-like, to a matter in hand.
"The Caribs were cannibals, weren't they?—in the long ago?" she went on. "Are we coming to that, Richard Preble? If we should, Billy and I will draw straws. We're both young and tender, you know."
"Hush!" I commanded; "that isn't a pretty joke." And later that same day, when I was able to get hold of Billy Grisdale, I read the riot act to him.
"You want to rub the O-Lord-pity-us look out of your eyes, young man, and put a little more ginger into your conversation with Edie," I suggested. "She is beginning to see things in the back part of your brain, and that isn't good for little girl Crusoes."
"Take it to yourself!" he retorted spitefully. "I saw you looking at Conetta not fifteen minutes ago with a scare in your eyes big enough to set an innocent bystander's teeth on edge."
"I'll reform," I promised, "and so must you, Billy. Take Bonteck for your model; not me."
"Bonteck's got something up his sleeve," he said morosely. "He's been going through the bunch for weapons. Think of it—nine men of us here three thousand miles out of reach of a policeman, and not so much as one poor little potato-popgun among us."
This was a mistake on Billy's part, of course. We still had the three pistols taken from the men we had waylaid on the night of the storm, but of these no mention had been made to Billy or any of the others, since to speak of them would have called for the story of the night's adventures—a story which Van Dyck and I were still keeping to ourselves.