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of the poison that he could see as well as ever. He then set out once more upon his way to he knew not where, having rubbed himself with an ointment of vile odour, which they gave him in goodly quantity to keep off all pestiferous insects, and on the day when he ate the last morsel of the food with which the natives had provided him he saw from the side of a high hill a strange ship at anchor in a cove beneath.

Now a ship might mean one thing or she might mean another; and a man’s life might depend on the difference.

Drinking deeply from a stream that ran over the rocks and through the forest, and so at last into the cove, Philip Marsham returned into the wood and sat upon a fallen tree. He saw a boat put out from the ship and touch on the shore a long way off, where some men left her and went out of sight. After an hour or two they came back, and, entering the boat, returned to the ship. He saw men working on deck and in the rigging; he heard the piping of a whistle, and now and again, as the wind changed, he heard more faintly than the drone of insects the voices of the men.

Being high above the shore, he found the mosquitoes fewer and the wind helped drive them away; yet they plagued him continually, despite his ointment, of which little was left, and made him miserable while he stayed. He would have hurried off had he dared; but the chance that the ship would be the means of saving his life withheld him from pursuing his journey, while doubt concerning the manner of craft she was withheld him from making known his presence.

In mid-afternoon he saw far away a sail, which came slowly in across the blue plain of the sea; and having