llow to drive home.'

'There ought to be some syrup for the kids,' suggested Herrick; 'they
like syrup.'

'Yes, syrup for the kids, red syrup at that!' said the captain. 'And
those things they pull at, and go pop, and have measly poetry inside.
And then I tell you we'd have a thanksgiving day and Christmas tree
combined. Great Scott, but I would like to see the kids! I guess they
would light right out of the house, when they saw daddy driving up. My
little Adar--'

The captain stopped sharply.

'Well, keep it up!' said the clerk.

'The damned thing is, I don't know if they ain't starving!' cried the
captain.

'They can't be worse off than we are, and that's one comfort,' returned
the clerk. 'I defy the devil to make me worse off.'

It seemed as if the devil heard him. The light of the moon had been
some time cut off and they had talked in darkness. Now there was heard a
roar, which drew impetuously nearer; the face of the lagoon was seen to
whiten; and before they had staggered to their feet, a squall burst in
rain upon the outcasts. The rage and volume of that avalanche one must
have lived in the tropics to conceive; a man panted in its assault, as
he might pant under a shower-bath; and the world seemed whelmed in night
and water.

They fled, groping for their usual shelter--it might be almost called
their home--in the old calaboose; came drenched into its empty chambers;
and lay down, three sops of humanity on the cold coral floors, and
presently, when the squall was overpast, the others could hear in the
darkness the chattering of the clerk's teeth.

'I say, you fellows,' he walled, 'for God's sake, lie up and try to warm
me. I'm blymed if I don't think I'll die else!'

So the three crept together into one wet mass, and lay until day came,
shivering and dozing off, and continually re-awakened to wretchedness by
the coughing of the clerk.

Chapter 2. MORNING ON THE BEACH--THE THREE LETTERS

The clouds were all fled, the beauty of the tropic day was spread upon
Papeete; and the wall of breaking seas upon the reef, and the palms upon
the islet, already trembled in the heat. A French man-of-war was going
out, homeward bound; she lay in the middle distance of the port, an ant
heap for activity. In the night a schooner had come in, and now lay far
out, hard by the passage; and the yellow flag, the emblem of pestilence,
flew on her. From up the coast, a long procession of canoes headed
round the point an