Valentine Williams

“ The corridor was quite dark, and by the time I had found the switch in Custrin's cabin, the doctor was in his berth, to all intents and purposes sleeping peacefully.
“Trust all men, but cut the pack!” is a favourite saying of my brother Francis. With that document in my possession I had no desire to be disturbed by surprise visitors, even though they walked in their sleep. I now blamed myself for my slackness in not making Carstairs find the key of my door. I went straight off to his bunk. ”

“ I congratulated myself on my firmness in refusing to let this persistent Master Custrin accompany the expedition. But we had not yet reached the island. I must be watchful, watchful...
Half an hour later, as I sat on the edge of my bunk smoking a cigarette, there came a tap at the door. Garth, looking strangely big and unwieldy in his pyjamas, stood outside.
“Come up at once!” he whispered. “Don't trouble to dress. There's no one about!”
He glided away. When I emerged on deck the eastern sky was streaked with light. Lawless was on the bridge, Garth at his side. ”

“ Apart altogether from this cautious instinct of mine, I knew next to nothing of this romantic cutthroat, and until I did I had no intention of jeopardizing my chances of sailing with Garth, the owner of the Naomi, by alarming him. I now realized that anything I might have told Garth about El Cojo, the baronet would have inevitably passed on to the doctor.
As for Custrin, I had nothing whatever against him. But he was a stranger—and in our job, if we don't necessarily “'eave 'arf a brick” at the stranger, we are exceedingly cold to him. Custrin was a perfectly civil, unassuming Englishman ”

“ But he must have his man with him. He must have Carstairs. In that I was inclined to support him. I had taken a fancy to Carstairs. I liked his honest, sensible face; he knew Garth and his ways; besides, he seemed a knowledgeable sort of chap and I had an idea that his experience with the sappers in the war might prove uncommonly useful when we pitched our little camp. It was ultimately decided that Carstairs should accompany us.
Then Garth suggested that we should take Custrin as well.
“Capital fellow, the doctor,” he remarked, “what the Americans call a good mixer. I like Custrin. ”

“ There's a fair landing on the north face, it says here, and a run ashore will do the men all the good in the world. You won't have above two or three days at the most at the rock before it will be time to put about and sail back to fetch us off!”
Lawless raised various objections, all of which did him the greatest credit. He didn't like leaving us. Suppose something happened to the Naomi? But Garth swept all objections aside. Then Lawless played his last trump.
“And what about Miss Garth?” he queried. “How will she like leaving you ashore on an uninhabited island? ”

“ I also thought it quite likely that the surf-bar mentioned by Adams (one always finds some thing of the sort round isolated islets like this) would make landing dangerous, and we should be lucky, I surmised, if we escaped with nothing worse than a good soaking. ”