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