"Well, that's where I'm against you."
"How?"
"Killing for policy's sake. I may be wrong, but it's against my nature to hang a chap so as to strike terror into others. However, he is hanged and done with, and there's no use saying any more on the matter."
"Not a bit," said Schumer, going on with the examination of the papers. There was nothing else of importance; some receipted bills, some old letters from chums dated four years back, an envelope with a theater program in it, and another envelope with a faded photograph of a woman in a low-necked dress, evidently the photograph of some actress that had struck Captain Walters' fancy.
"It's funny what you find among a man's belongings," said Schumer. "I've come across a Bible and a pious letter from his mother in the leavings of one of the biggest blackguards in the world, and I met a man who told me he had gone through the gear of a parson who was laid out on a smallpox ship and found books and pictures that weren't holy. This Walters had an eye for a pretty girl, and sent his wife remittances pretty often; that's all his remains say of him. I reckon he was a poor sort, sentimental, with a taste for the bottle and with no hold on his crew."
They put the papers away, and Schumer retired to bed, while Floyd, relighting his pipe, strolled over to the ocean side of the reef. At night, and especially when the moon was full, this was a place of terrific loneliness. One heard the voice of the wastes of the sea. He sat down on a lump of coral and watched the rollers coming in and the bursting of the foam under the moonlight.
The events of the day had depressed him, yet nothing could have shown better results, as regards their plans, than the day's work just finished. They wanted labor for the fishery, and labor had appeared on the island as though summoned by a genie. They wanted a ship that would make no trouble, and here was a schooner floating in the lagoon, a vessel well found and seaworthy and without eyes or ears to spy on their doings.
Fortune had turned her face toward them and held out her hand, and had Floyd been listening to the story of himself and Schumer told as a yarn his commentary would have been "Lucky beggars!"
The reality was different, and it disclosed the brutality which attends success, especially the successful attempt to lift treasure that is in Nature's keeping.
Nothing could be more fascinating than the idea of raiding one of Nature's great banks where she stores her pearls, her diamonds, or her gold, nothing more trying to all the endurance and good in man than the prosecution of that great burglary.