h
him for two years. He married a girl that was engaged to another man--a
poor devil of a chap named Proctor--married her a week after Proctor got
the run from his ship for being drunk. And every one says that it was
Rothesay who made him drunk, as he was mad to get the girl. And I have
no doubt it's true. Rothesay is the two ends and bight of a damned
sneak."

Proctor nodded, but said nothing.

He drank now whenever he could get at liquor, ashore or afloat.
Sometimes he would steal it. Yet somehow he always managed to get
another ship. He knew the islands well, and provided he could be kept
sober there was not a better man to be found in the Pacific labour
trade. And the "trade"--_i.e._, the recruiting of native labourers for
the Fijian and Queensland sugar plantations from among the New Hebrides
and Solomon Groups--was a dangerous pursuit. But Proctor was always a
lucky man. He had come down to a second mate's berth now on the brig
_Bandolier_; but then he was "recruiter" as well, and with big wages,
incurred more risks than any other man on the ship. Perhaps he had grown
careless of his life, which was lonely enough, for though not a morose
man, he never talked with his shipmates. So for two years or more he
cruised in the _Bandolier_ among the woolly-haired, naked cannibals
of the Solomon Group and thereabout, landing at places where no other
recruiter would get out of his boat, and taking a box of trade goods
with him, sit calmly down on the beach surrounded by savages who might
without a moment's warning riddle him with spears or club him from
behind. But Proctor knew no fear, although his armed boat's crew and
the crew of the covering boat would call to him to get aboard again and
shove off. Other labour ships there were cruising on the same ground
who lost men often enough by spear or bullet or poisoned arrow, and went
back to Fiji or Queensland with perhaps not a score of "recruits,"
but Proctor never lost a single man, and always filled the crazy old
_Bandolier_ with a black and savage cargo. Then, once in port again,
his enemy seized him, and for a week at a time he would lie drunk in the
local hells, till the captain sought him out and brought him on board
again. Going back to the recruiting grounds with an empty ship and with
no danger to apprehend from a sudden rush of naked figures, the captain
gave him as much liquor as he wanted, else Proctor would have stolen
it. And one night he was drunk on his wat