open door of a
drinking-shop.

"What? Jason? Bless my soul! Come in," the fellow cried, embracing
him; and to avoid the curious gaze of the throng that had gathered on
the pavement Jason allowed himself to be led into the house.

"Well, God save us! So you're back! But I heard you had come. Old Jon
Olafsson told us. He was down at the jetty. Boys," the fellow shouted
to a little company of men who sat drinking in the hot parlor, "he's
another Lazarus, come back from the dead."

"Here's to his goot healt, den," said a fat Dutch captain, who sat on
the hearth, strumming a fiddle to tune it.

And while the others laughed and drank, a little deformed dwarf in a
corner with an accordion between his twisted fingers began to play
and sing.

"This is the last thing that should have happened," thought Jason,
and with many excuses he tried to elbow his way out. But the tipsy
comrade held him while he rattled on:

"Been away--foreign, eh? Married since? No? Then the girls of old
Iceland are best, eh? What? Yes? And old Iceland's the fairest land
the sun shines upon, eh? No? But, Lord bless me, what a mess you made
of it by going away just when you did!"

At that Jason, while pushing his way through, turned about with a
look of inquiry.

"Didn't know it? What? That after the mother died old Jorgen went
about looking for you? No? Wanted? Why, to make a man of you, boy.
Make you his son and the like of that, and not too soon either. And
when he couldn't find you he took up with this Michael Sunlocks."

"Michael Sunlocks?" Jason repeated, in a distant sort of voice.

"Just so; this precious new Governor that wants to put down all the
drinking."

"The new Governor?"

"Yes. Put _your_ nose out, boy; for that was the start of his luck."

Jason felt dizzy, and under the hard tan of his skin his face grew
white.

"You should know him, though. No? Well, after old Jorgen had
quarrelled with him, everybody said he was a kind of bastard brother
of yours."

The reeking place had got hotter and hotter. It was now stifling, and
Jason stumbled out into the street.

Michael Sunlocks was the new Governor, and Michael Sunlocks was about
to be married to Greeba. Thrice had this man robbed him of his
blessing, standing in the place that ought to have been his; once
with his father, once with Greeba, and once again with Jorgen
Jorgensen.

He tried to reckon it all up, but do what he would he could not keep
his mind from wanderi