ld go back to Von. There's always a home there
waiting for me. But why should I go? Besides, there were Dad's plans,
and I felt that it devolved upon me to carry them out. It seemed a fine
thing to do. Also, I wanted to carry them out. And . . . here I am.

"Take my advice and never go to Tahiti. It is a lovely place, and so are
the natives. But the white people! Now Barabbas lived in Tahiti.
Thieves, robbers, and lairs--that is what they are. The honest men
wouldn't require the fingers of one hand to count. The fact that I was a
woman only simplified matters with them. They robbed me on every
pretext, and they lied without pretext or need. Poor Mr. Ericson was
corrupted. He joined the robbers, and O.K.'d all their demands even up
to a thousand per cent. If they robbed me of ten francs, his share was
three. One bill of fifteen hundred francs I paid, netted him five
hundred francs. All this, of course, I learned afterward. But the
_Miele_ was old, the repairs had to be made, and I was charged, not three
prices, but seven prices.

"I never shall know how much Ericson got out of it. He lived ashore in a
nicely furnished house. The shipwrights were giving it to him rent-free.
Fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and ice came to this house every day, and
he paid for none of it. It was part of his graft from the various
merchants. And all the while, with tears in his eyes, he bemoaned the
vile treatment I was receiving from the gang. No, I did not fall among
thieves. I went to Tahiti.

"But when the robbers fell to cheating one another, I got my first clues
to the state of affairs. One of the robbed robbers came to me after
dark, with facts, figures, and assertions. I knew I was ruined if I went
to law. The judges were corrupt like everything else. But I did do one
thing. In the dead of night I went to Ericson's house. I had the same
revolver I've got now, and I made him stay in bed while I overhauled
things. Nineteen hundred and odd francs was what I carried away with me.
He never complained to the police, and he never came back on board. As
for the rest of the gang, they laughed and snapped their fingers at me.
There were two Americans in the place, and they warned me to leave the
law alone unless I wanted to leave the _Miele_ behind as well.

"Then I sent to New Zealand and got a German mate. He had a master's
certificate, and was on the ship's papers as captain, but I was a better
navigator t