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It was as solid as a fortification, and pounded down, besides, with pounders, like a city street; and if ever there was money in a safe place and likely to stay there undisturbed, I guess it was Old Dibs's. It was a happy day for Tom and me when the Flink dropped anchor off the settlement, and we patched it up with the captain to give us a passage to the Kingsmills, to begin the world again.

It had always lain sort of heavy on my wife that we hadn't put up a name over old Dibs's grave, and now that we were going away with that undone she reproached me awful. You see, I had promised her something nice in the marble line from Sydney, and kept putting her off and off in the hope she'd forget it.

They made the boatswain's chair fast below, and sent her up with the first load two bags of coin getting it on a level with the platform by the lantern marking the place. I stood on the platform and had no trouble in yanking the stuff in; and this went right along like a mail steamer, till it was all up, and it came old Dibs's turn.

But Tom talked him round, showing how we'd rig a boatswain's chair on a tackle, and a sort of rustic monkey-rail to keep him from being dizzy, and had an answer ready for every one of old Dibs's criticisms.

And I guess it was Old Dibs's face that needed watching, it was beaming and happy, specially when they shook hands on it, and we all three walked along abreast, like a father and his two sons on the way to the bar. Tom didn't let grass grow under his feet, and he went at it all with a rush, beginning first of all with Iosefo, the Kanaka pastor.

Then, last of all, we were to make away with all Old Dibs's trunks, packing what clothes he had, and that into camphor-wood chests, which would occasion no remark, specially if they were covered over on the top with trade dresses and hats, and such like.

There was not even the temptation of Old Dibs's treasure to keep us now, for the natives all got together and heaped up the graveyard solid with rock to the level of the outside walls, and floored the top with cement six inches deep, putting in a matter of a thousand tons.

Yes, sir, cold to the touch like it had been for hours, and holding a blackened lantern in his poor old fist dead as dead face down in the coral sand. We rolled him over to do what we could for him, but he had passed to a place beyond help or hurt. I went back for Tom in a protuberation, saying, "My God! Tom, what do you think's happened? Old Dibs's dead in the graveyard!"

The pastor had told Tom that one of the children had reckonized Old Dibs's photograph, and clapped his hands before he could be stopped, crying out, "Ona! Ona!" the name Old Dibs went by among the Kanakas. We put in a pretty anxious day, for they began a systematic prowl all over the island, obviously dividing out the territory and doing it simultaneous.