CHAPTER XIX.
THE ISLAND.
"Know then," went on Joe, still keeping up his oratorical pose and gestures, "that yon blazing wreck is none other than the good schooner 'Island Queen'—or, rather, it was the 'Island Queen.' On board her are the charred remains of the mysterious sailor who caused us so much trouble and scared me out of seven years' growth when he grabbed up that potato pan."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Nat, in a shocked tone. "You talk about the death of the poor fellow as if it was not a thing to be serious over."
To his astonishment, the others broke into a laugh at this.
"Well, of all the cold-blooded, unfeeling——" began Nat indignantly.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Joe, while Nat glowered at him wrathfully. "Don't waste any sympathy on the ruffian, Nat."
"Say, this is going too far," burst out Nat. "Do you mean to say that you let the poor fellow perish without making any effort to aid him? No matter what he had done he was a fellow being——"
"If the Darwinian theory is true, that is," put in Captain Akers quietly, but meaningly.
"Why? What is the——" began Nat, but Joe saw that the matter had gone far enough and put him out of his suspense.
"Why, that thing wasn't a man at all, Nat," chuckled Joe; "it was a monkey!"