The others guessed that Armstrong's anger was largely due to his own failure as a watchman.
"One thing is clear," said Warrender, considerately. "Whoever played these tricks, it was not Rush. He couldn't possibly have drawn you to the shore, cut round here and done the damage, and then got back to his boat and dropped down stream to where we met him, while you were coming straight across. On the other hand, if he had got into his boat directly after he disappeared, he could just have done it. If he was the decoy, who was the confederate?"
"'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,'" quoted Pratt, "and among other stupendous feats, 'to wrong the wronger till he render right.' But I'm not disposed to leave old Time to his own unaided resources. These island Pucks are decidedly annoying, but they're also uncommonly interesting. 'Life is a war,' some one said. Well, it's to be a war of wits, by the look of it, and I'll back our wits in the end against sirens or sorcerers, or any old scaramouch. Only I'm bound to confess that up to the present the enemy is several points up."
CHAPTER IX
REPRISALS
"What about dividing the night into watches?" asked Armstrong, when they had cleared away their evening meal.
"Dark to dawn is about eight hours," responded Warrender. "By summer-time, nine to five."
"And three into eight will go with a recurring decimal," added Pratt. "I don't mind being the recurring decimal, which as a matter of practicality I take to mean that I'll come on every tenth hour; that is to say, I'll have ten hours' sleep unbroken, and turn up, fresh as a lark, at seven in the morning."
"Very ingenious," said Warrender, "but I prefer my fractions vulgar. Two-thirds of an hour is forty minutes, and you'll do your two hours forty minutes like us two. We'll start alphabetically, shall we? Armstrong first--then the vulgar fraction, then me."
"I always thought the middleman got the best of it in life," said Pratt. "Here's an exception, any way. The first and last men will each have five hours twenty minutes' sleep on end; the middleman won't get any, because he won't fall asleep at all in the first watch, from over-anxiety, or in the third, because it won't seem worth while. Still, if we permutate--APW, PAW and so on--we'll all suffer in turn. I warn you, when I'm middleman I shan't be able to keep awake without the solace of my banjo."