in
his code, was almost as serious as wanton homicide; and I do believe
that he respected a murderer more than a man given to small practices.

Otoo had my welfare always at heart. He thought ahead for me, weighed my
plans, and took a greater interest in them than I did myself. At first,
when I was unaware of this interest of his in my affairs, he had to
divine my intentions, as, for instance, at Papeete, when I contemplated
going partners with a knavish fellow-countryman on a guano venture. I
did not know he was a knave. Nor did any white man in Papeete. Neither
did Otoo know, but he saw how thick we were getting, and found out for
me, and without my asking him. Native sailors from the ends of the seas
knock about on the beach in Tahiti; and Otoo, suspicious merely, went
among them till he had gathered sufficient data to justify his
suspicions. Oh, it was a nice history, that of Randolph Waters. I
couldn't believe it when Otoo first narrated it; but when I sheeted it
home to Waters he gave in without a murmur, and got away on the first
steamer to Aukland.

At first, I am free to confess, I couldn't help resenting Otoo's poking
his nose into my business. But I knew that he was wholly unselfish; and
soon I had to acknowledge his wisdom and discretion. He had his eyes
open always to my main chance, and he was both keen-sighted and
far-sighted. In time he became my counsellor, until he knew more of my
business than I did myself. He really had my interest at heart more than
I did. Mine was the magnificent carelessness of youth, for I preferred
romance to dollars, and adventure to a comfortable billet with all night
in. So it was well that I had some one to look out for me. I know that
if it had not been for Otoo, I should not be here to-day.

Of numerous instances, let me give one. I had had some experience in
blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus. Otoo and I were in
Samoa--we really were on the beach and hard aground--when my chance came
to go as recruiter on a blackbird brig. Otoo signed on before the mast;
and for the next half-dozen years, in as many ships, we knocked about
the wildest portions of Melanesia. Otoo saw to it that he always pulled
stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom in recruiting labor was to land the
recruiter on the beach. The covering boat always lay on its oars several
hundred feet off shore, while the recruiter's boat, also lying on its
oars, kept afloat on the edge of the beach. When I