ho, as he came
to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he
brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding
him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk
to her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay
stroking the poor mother's thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as
he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain
and say his leg pained him.

Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so
Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept
but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain.
The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong--a
serious injury to the left hip.

Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison
sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child's nurse
entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole
story.

"_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the
master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping
up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the
little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, and the
master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother's arms, and
tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I know of this
thing."

Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o'clock on the following
morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt
put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast
what he thought of him.

"And if this was a civilised country," he added crisply, "you would be
now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife
by your brutality--she will not live another two months. You have so
injured your child's hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a
damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and
if you show yourself in Joe D'Acosta's smoking-room again, you'll find
more than half a dozen men--Englishmen, Americans and Germans--ready to
kick you out into the _au ala_" (road).

Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who
was a third less of his employer's weight, deftly put out his right foot
and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo
sat on him and, having a fine command of seaf