t as she was bringing to, and looking
up, he saw the face he expected.

"How are you, Lupton, my dear fellow?" said Peese, as the trader gained
the deck, wringing his hand effusively, as if he were a long-lost
brother. "By Heavens! I'm glad to meet a countryman again, and that
countryman Frank Lupton. Don't like letting your hand go." And still
grasping the trader's rough hand in his, delicate and smooth as a
woman's, he beamed upon him with an air of infantile pleasure.

*****

This was one of Peese's peculiarities--an affectation of absolute
affection for any Englishman he met, from the captain of a man-of-war
(these, however, he avoided as much as possible), to a poor beachcomber
with but a grass girdle round his loins.

"What brings you here, Captain Peese?" said Lupton, bluntly, as his
eye sought the village, and saw the half-naked figures of his native
following leaving his house in pairs, each carrying between them
a square box, and disappearing into the _puka_ scrub. It was his
pearl-shell. Mameri, his wife, had scented danger, and the shell at
least was safe, however it befell. Peese's glance followed his, and
the handsome little captain laughed, and slapped the gloomy-faced and
suspicious trader on the back with an air of _camaraderie_.

"My dear fellow, what an excessively suspicious woman your good Mameri
is! But do not be alarmed. I have not come here to do any business this
time, but to land a passenger, and as soon as his traps are on the beach
I'm off again to Maga Reva. Such are the exigencies, my dear Lupton, of
a trading captain's life in the South Seas, I cannot even spare the time
to go on shore with you and enjoy the hospitality of the good Mameri and
your two fair daughters. But come below with me and see my passenger."
And he led the way to his cabin.

*****

The passenger's appearance, so Lupton told me, "was enough to make a
man's blood curdle," so ghastly pale and emaciated was he. He rose as
Lupton entered and extended his hand.

"My friend here," said the worthy little Ishmael, bowing and caressing
his long silky beard, "is, ah, hum, Mr. Brown. He is, as you will
observe, my dear Lupton, in a somewhat weak state of health, and is in
search of some retired spot where he may recuperate sufficiently----"

"Don't lie unnecessarily, sir."

Peese bowed affably and smiled, and the stranger addressed Lupton.

"My name is not Brown--'tis of no consequence what it is; but I am,
indeed, a