to me, don't speak to me. I can't stand it,' broke from
him.

The other two stood over him perplexed.

'Wot can't he stand now?' said the clerk. ''Asn't he 'ad a meal? I'M
lickin' my lips.'

Herrick reared up his wild eyes and burning face. 'I can't beg!' he
screamed, and again threw himself prone.

'This thing's got to come to an end,' said the captain with an intake of
the breath.

'Looks like signs of an end, don't it?' sneered the clerk.

'He's not so far from it, and don't you deceive yourself,' replied the
captain. 'Well,' he added in a livelier voice, 'you fellows hang on
here, and I'll go and interview my representative.'

Whereupon he turned on his heel, and set off at a swinging sailor's walk
towards Papeete.

It was some half hour later when he returned. The clerk was dozing with
his back against the tree: Herrick still lay where he had flung himself;
nothing showed whether he slept or waked.

'See, boys!' cried the captain, with that artificial heartiness of his
which was at times so painful, 'here's a new idea.' And he produced note
paper, stamped envelopes, and pencils, three of each. 'We can all write
home by the mail brigantine; the consul says I can come over to his
place and ink up the addresses.'

'Well, that's a start, too,' said the clerk. 'I never thought of that.'

'It was that yarning last night about going home that put me up to it,'
said the captain.

'Well, 'and over,' said the clerk. 'I'll 'ave a shy,' and he retired a
little distance to the shade of a canoe.

The others remained under the purao. Now they would write a word or two,
now scribble it out; now they would sit biting at the pencil end and
staring seaward; now their eyes would rest on the clerk, where he sat
propped on the canoe, leering and coughing, his pencil racing glibly on
the paper.

'I can't do it,' said Herrick suddenly. 'I haven't got the heart.'

'See here,' said the captain, speaking with unwonted gravity; 'it may be
hard to write, and to write lies at that; and God knows it is; but it's
the square thing. It don't cost anything to say you're well and happy,
and sorry you can't make a remittance this mail; and if you don't, I'll
tell you what I think it is--I think it's about the high-water mark of
being a brute beast.'

'It's easy to talk,' said Herrick. 'You don't seem to have written much
yourself, I notice.'

'What do you bring in me for?' broke from the captain. His voice was
indeed scarce rais