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about Bougainville; he knows the place well, I have been told. And as neither you nor I do, I may get something out of him worth knowing." "Ay, ay, sir," answered the Welsh mate. "But he's mighty close over it, anyway. I've hardly heard him open his mouth yet." A minute or two passed, and Jensen was standing at the cabin-door, cap in hand. "Come in," said Rothesay, turning up the cabin lamp, and then he said quietly, "Sit down, Proctor; I want to talk to you quietly. You see, I know you." The seaman stood silent a moment with drooping eyes. "My name is Jensen, sir," he said sullenly. "Very well, just as you like. But I sent for you to tell you that I had not forgotten our former friendship, and--and I want to prove it, if you will let me." "Thank you, sir," was the reply, and the man's eyes met Rothesay's for one second, and Rothesay saw that they burned with a strange, red gleam; "but you can do nothing for me. I am no longer Proctor, the disgraced and drunken captain, but Jensen, A.B. And," with sudden fury, "I want to be left to myself." "Proctor," and Rothesay rose to his feet, and placed his hands on the table, "listen to me. You may think that I have treated you badly. My wife died two years ago, and I----" Proctor waved his hand impatiently. "Let it pass if you have wronged me. But, because I got drunk and lost my ship, I don't see how you are to blame for it." A look of relief came into Rothesay's face. Surely the man had not heard whom he had married, and there was nothing to fear after all. For a minute or so neither spoke, then Proctor picked up his cap. "Proctor," said Rothesay, with a smile, "take a glass of grog with me for the sake of old times, won't you!" "No, thank you, sir," he replied calmly, and then without another word he walked out of the cabin, and presently Rothesay heard him take the wheel again from the man who had relieved him. Two days later the _Kate Rennie_ sailed round the north cape of Bougainville, and then bore up for a large village on the east coast named Numa Numa, which Rothesay hoped to make at daylight on the following morning. At midnight Jensen came to the wheel again. The night was bright with the light of shining stars, and the sea, although the breeze was brisk, was smooth as a mountain lake, only the _rip, ripy rip_ of the barque's cutwater and the bubbling sounds of her eddying wake broke the silence of the night. Ten miles away the verdu
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