The door opened, and a large, heavily built man entered. In his belt was a heavy, long-barrelled Colt's. One quick, anxious look he gave them, then his face wreathed in a genial smile and his hand was extended.
“Welcome, strangers. But if you don't mind my asking, how, by all that's sacred, did you ever manage to find my island?”
“Because we were out of our course,” Grief answered, shaking hands.
“My name's Hall, Swithin Hall,” the other said, turning to shake Snow's hand. “And I don't mind telling you that you're the first visitors I've ever had.”
“And this is your secret island that's had all the beaches talking for years?” Grief answered. “Well, I know the formula now for finding it.”
“How's that?” Hall asked quickly.
“Smash your chronometer, get mixed up with a hurricane, and then keep your eyes open for cocoanuts rising out of the sea.”
“And what is your name?” Hall asked, after he had laughed perfunctorily.
“Anstey—Phil Anstey,” Grief answered promptly. “Bound on the Uncle Toby from the Gilberts to New Guinea, and trying to find my longitude. This is my mate, Mr. Gray, a better navigator than I, but who has lost his goat just the same to the chronometer.”
Grief did not know his reason for lying, but he had felt the prompting and succumbed to it. He vaguely divined that something was wrong, but could not place his finger on it. Swithin Hall was a fat, round-faced man, with a laughing lip and laughter-wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. But Grief, in his early youth, had learned how deceptive this type could prove, as well as the deceptiveness of blue eyes that screened the surface with fun and hid what went on behind.