The footsteps halted abruptly. Then, in another moment, they crunched upon the sand, and a tall man, with thin, swarthy face, a man of perhaps forty or forty-five, who picked assiduously at his teeth with a quill toothpick, stood over the recumbent figure.
“Found you, have I?” he grunted complacently.
“If you like to put it that way,” said the young man indifferently. He raised himself on his elbow again, and stared toward the road. “Where's the army?” he inquired.
The tall man allowed the point of the quill toothpick to flex and strike back against his teeth. The sound was distinctive. Tck! He ignored the question.
“When the mate came out of dreamland,” he said, “he lowered a boat and came ashore to lay a complaint against you.”
“I can't say I'm surprised,” admitted the young man. “I suppose I am to go with you quietly and make no trouble or it will be the worse for me—I believe that's the usual formula, isn't it?”
The man with the quill toothpick sat down on the sand. He appeared to be absorbed for a moment in a contemplation of his surroundings.
“These tropic nights are wonderful, aren't they? Kind of get you.” He plied the quill toothpick industriously. “I'm a passenger on the steamer, and I came ashore with the mate. He's gone back—without laying the complaint. There's always a way of fixing things—even injured feelings. One of the native boat's-crew said he knew where you were to be found. He's over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the road.
The young man sat bolt upright.
“I don't get you,” he said slowly, “except that you are evidently not personifying the majesty of the law. What's the idea?”