This seemed to Holroyd a perfectly new idea.

Holroyd was roused from meditations that were becoming sinister by the hum of a mosquito.

But he did so at last, and went a little way to call up Holroyd.

"Caramba!" cried Gerilleau, and resorted to Holroyd forthwith.

Holroyd was half-way up the companion.

And the captain suddenly turned his back on Holroyd and became an active and strident commander.

Then the curiosity of the captain made him draw up almost alongside as the lieutenant got aboard, so that the whole of the Santa Rosa, deck and hold, was visible to Holroyd.

Captain Gerilleau embarked upon speculations that Holroyd could not follow, and the two men disputed with a certain increasing vehemence.

Holroyd understood the Portuguese to say the body was too much eaten to tell.

Holroyd gathered only fragments of its purport.

Holroyd and the captain came out of the cabin in which the swollen and contorted body of the lieutenant lay and stood together at the stern of the monitor, staring at the sinister vessel they trailed behind them.

" Holroyd was not moved to conversation.

Holroyd watched the mounting yellow flare against the blackness, and the livid flashes of sheet lightning that came and went above the forest summits, throwing them into momentary silhouette, and his stoker stood behind him watching also.

So Holroyd hooted and whistled.

"Dere is one thing we can do," he said presently, "What's that?" said Holroyd.

Holroyd's improving ear detected something about ammunition.

Holroyd turned and stared at the captain, realising slowly that he referred to the unappetising mixture of races that constituted his crew.

" Holroyd thought he did, but he said nothing.

"Lord!" said Holroyd, "what now?" "I have decided," said the captain.

"Whatto land?" said Holroyd, sitting up brightly.

"I have decided," he repeated, and Holroyd manifested symptoms of impatience.

"It is no good," he said to Holroyd; "no good at all.

I heard this story in a fragmentary state from Holroyd not three weeks ago.

No eye-witnesses of their activity, except for such glimpses as Holroyd's, have survived the encounter.

They are increasing rapidly in numbers, and Holroyd at least is firmly convinced that they will finally dispossess man over the whole of tropical South America.