e
two ends and bight of a--scoundrel; and that supercargo with the yaller
moustache and womany hands is the worst of the lot. I wonder if he's
aboard this trip? I don't let him inside my house; I've got too many
daughters, and they all think him a fine man."

* * * * *

Nerida, Taplin's wife, came out to us from an inner room. She was a
native of one of the Pelew Islands, a tall, slenderly-built girl, with
pale, olive skin and big, soft eyes. A flowing gown of yellow
muslin--the favourite colour of the Portuguese-blooded natives of the
Pelews--buttoned high up to her throat, draped her graceful figure.
After putting her little hand in ours, and greeting us in the Funafuti
dialect, she went over to Taplin, and touching his arm, pointed out the
schooner that was now only a mile or so away, and a smile parted her
lips, and the star-like eyes glowed and filled with a tender light.

I felt Captain Warren touch my arm as he rose and went outside. I
followed.

* * * * *

"L----," said Warren, "can't we do something for Taplin ourselves?
Isn't there a station anywhere about Tonga or Wallis Island that would
suit him?"

"Would he come, Warren? He--or, rather, that pretty wife of his--seems
bent upon going away in the schooner to the Carolines."

"Aye," said the skipper, "that's it. If it were any other vessel I
wouldn't care." Then suddenly:

"That fellow Motley (the supercargo) is a damned scoundrel--capable of
any villainy where a woman is concerned. Did you ever hear about old
Raymond's daughter down at Mangareva?"

I had heard the story very often. By means of a forged letter
purporting to have been written by her father--an old English trader in
the Gambier Group--Motley had lured the beautiful young half-blood away
from a school in San Francisco, and six months afterwards turned her
adrift on the streets of Honolulu. Raymond was a lonely man, and
passionately attached to his only child; so no one wondered when,
reaching California a year after and finding her gone, he shot himself
in his room at an hotel.

* * * * *

"I will ask him, anyway," I said; and as we went back into the house
the ALIDA shot past our line of vision through the coco-palms, and
brought up inside the brig.

"Taplin," I said, "would you care about taking one of our stations to
the eastward? Name any island you fancy, and we will land you there
with the pick of our 'trade' room."

"Thank you. I would be only too glad, but I cannot. I