"Of course there's the—the other side too—" Schrofft stumbled over his words, bashful as a maiden with her lover. "I cannot thank you. You save my life, you save my reputation, you—"
"Cut out the thanks, Schrofft," Mr. Roe interrupted, with a touch of smiling haughtiness. "I don't like 'em. You'd better be clearing out now," the weary monarch added to his thronging admirers. "You're nice little brown men enough, but I'm sleepy. Sigue Dagupan, the whole bunch."
Two mornings later, after breakfast, Herr Schrofft again brought up the subject of Mr. Richard Roe's reward. In the intervening day the Sarstoon had come and gone with her hard-won load, and Schrofft's admiration for his miraculous helper had grown exceedingly. With the passion for work still on him, Mr. Richard Roe had been everywhere, and everywhere had been effective, on the beach, in the canoes, on the Sarstoon's deck and in her hold, even on her bridge.
Mingled with the boundless admiration, was another feeling which filled Schrofft with confusion, while it opened a vista to the sky-line of his lonely life. Since young Erich Schmidt was killed before his eyes, twenty years gone in Africa, he had wanted no friend, no bunkie, kein Kamerad. But now—Mr. Richard Roe sat across his table irresistibly reminiscent of some wandering, roué god, who needed but a whiff of Olympian air to refreshen his eternal youth. Sun and wind and work had erased the signs of dissipated strength, sleep had rubbed out the aging lines of work, and now he sat in the sala of the Tin-Roofed House lean, brown, and hard, with his rumpled yellow hair and trace of yellow beard, and sparkling eyes half smiling at Life and Fate—not defiantly or deprecatingly, but with the faint amusement one may find in the vagaries of equals one knows well.
Mingled emotions made expression difficult for Schrofft, and he gave speech its most practical form. "Here is the hundert," he said gruffly, and pushed a chunky little bag across. "It don't pay you, nothin' efer can—"
"The hundred?" Mr. Richard Roe stared at the bag as if surprised, but he drew it to him. "Oh, yes. I'll take it if you like, Schrofft, of course. Much obliged." As he weighed it in his hand, his eyes darkened suddenly, and the under lids drew tight, as if he were gazing at something far away over the blue water which lay before him. Almost unconsciously he untied the cord that bound it, and a little stream of gold ran chinking out. "Yellow ones," Mr. Roe muttered.
"It's not much," Schrofft said apologetically, "but— What are you going to do now?"
Still unconsciously, Mr. Roe's long supple fingers had arranged the heap into four little orderly piles, and he was shoving them back and forth, like counters in some game. "Four stacks of blue ones," he muttered.
"What will you do now?" Schrofft repeated.
"Eh?" said Mr. Richard Roe. "Oh, yes. What'll I do? Well, Schrofft, I never bother to plan that out far ahead."