en by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the
reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I was one. It included a
corporal and a sergeant. Charker was corporal, and the sergeant's name
was Drooce. He was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His
Majesty's service.

The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with Charker.
All the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and sky in a few
minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to shine out together,
and to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another's shoulders,
millions deep. Next morning, we cast anchor off the Island. There was a
snug harbour within a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were
cocoa-nut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the
top like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects
that are usually seen in those parts, and _I_ am not going to describe
them, having something else to tell about.

Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the flags in
the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the
people in the place came down to look at us. One of those Sambo
fellows--they call those natives Sambos, when they are half-negro and
half-Indian--had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained
on board after we had let go our anchor. He was called Christian George
King, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was. Now, I confess,
for myself, that on that first day, if I had been captain of the
Christopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should
have kicked Christian George King--who was no more a Christian than he
was a King or a George--over the side, without exactly knowing why,
except that it was the right thing to do.

But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant
humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher
Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver-Store. I had had a hard
life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too
gay to please me. "Here you are," I thought to myself, "good scholars
and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like,
able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what
you like; and much _you_ care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal
Marines! Yet it's hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-