The overseer was too contemptuous and perhaps too languid in the stifling heat of approaching noontide to correct his course.
Nuttall blundered to the end of the avenue, and round the corner of it, and there ran into Pitt, alone, toiling with a wooden spade upon an irrigation channel.

A pair of cotton drawers, loose and ragged, clothed him from waist to knee; above and below he was naked, save for a broad hat of plaited straw that sheltered his unkempt golden head from the rays of the tropical sun.

At sight of him Nuttall returned thanks aloud to his Maker.

Pitt stared at him, and the shipwright poured out his dismal news in a dismal tone.

The sum of it was that he must have ten pounds from Blood that very morning or they were all undone.