"Rum!" he demanded.
Karaki shook his head, and a haunted look crept into Pellett's eyes.
"Take—take away all that stuff," he begged pathetically, pointing at the ocean....
Thereafter for two days he was very, very sick, and he learned how a small boat in any kind of a sea can move forty-seven different ways within one and the same minute. This is no trifling bit of knowledge, as those who have acquired it can tell. It was nearly fatal to Pellett.
On the third day he awoke with a mouth and a stomach of fumed leather and a great weakness, but otherwise in command of his few faculties. The gale had fallen and Karaki was quietly preparing fresh coconuts. Pellett quaffed two before he thought to miss the brandy with which his breakfast draft was always laced. But when he remembered the milk choked in his throat.
"Me like'm rum."
"No got'm rum."
Pellett looked forward and aft, to windward and to lee. There was a great deal of horizon in sight, but nothing else. For the first time he was aware of a strangeness in events.
"What name you come so far?" he asked.
"We catch'm one big fella wind," explained Karaki.