88 I N A G U A 



men feel uncomfortable and to cause them to squirm in their 

 chairs was sweet revenge. That we were different white men 

 was unimportant. 



The Daxons were soon disposed of, though the elder David 

 descended into one of the mightiest rages that I have ever seen 

 possess a human being when he found that he was to be de- 

 prived of his share of the spoils. Under Richardson's prompting 

 he had brought us a bill for seventy-five English pounds which 

 we refused to pay. His face distorted into a savage leer, his 

 eyes bulged and he worked himself into an insane frenzy. 

 Throwing out a barrel chest he pounded, gorilla-like, on its 

 immensity, bellowing curses at us. The island had touched him, 

 too. Years of grubbing in its stony soil, with poverty always 

 around the corner, had got the best of him and the hope of 

 sudden riches in the form of easily acquired wreckage had up- 

 set his equilibrium. He was in debt to Richardson and his hope 

 of canceling this debt had been dashed to the ground. We did 

 not blame him, rather we felt sorry for him, and in the end 

 he quieted down and was paid a fair amount for his services. 



And thus it was that we became islanders, to dwell in a little 

 coral and thatch hut by the sea. Over the door on a piece of soft 

 driftwood which we picked up on the beach, we carved with 

 our penknives the quaint and amusing motto— "If yo don take 

 de blessin, yo gotta take de cussin." It became the essence of 

 our island philosophy. 



Although our house had but two rooms we managed quite 

 nicely, for two rooms is about all the space anyone actually 

 needs. We turned one room into sleeping quarters and the 

 other into a laboratory. With two long boards that had drifted 

 up on the beach a mile or so away we made a laboratory table. 

 When we found the planks they were covered with barnacles 

 and algae and housed a considerable collection of toredos and 

 other marine organisms. But they were still solid, so we cleaned 



