and
exposure. For nearly a year he lived among these people, adapting
himself to their mode of life, and gaining a certain amount of respect;
for in addition to being a naturally hard-working man, he had no taste
for the gross looseness of life that characterised nine out of every
ten white men who in those days lived among the wild people of the North
Pacific Islands.

Two years passed by. Brandon--for that was his name--realised in all its
bitterness that he could never return to England again, as recognition
and capture, dared he ever show himself there, would be almost certain:
for, in addition to his great stature and marked physiognomy, he was
fatally marked for identification by a great scar received in honourable
fight from the cutlass of the captain of a Portuguese slaver on the
coast of Africa. And so, in sheer despair of his future, he resolved
to cast aside for ever all hope of again seeing his native land and all
that was dear to him, and live out his life among the lonely islands of
the wide Pacific.

Perhaps, as he looked out, at long, long intervals of years, at the
sails of some ship that passed within sight of the island, he may have
thought of the bright-faced girl in the little Cornish village who had
promised to be his wife when he came home again in the _Tagus_; but in
his rude, honest way he would only sigh and say to himself--

"Poor Rose, she's forgotten me by now; I hope so, anyhow."

So time went by, slowly at first, then quicker, for the young native
woman whom he had married a year before had aroused in him a sort of
unspoken affection for her artless and childlike innocence, and this
deepened when her first child was born; and sometimes, as he worked
at his old trade of boat-building--learned before he joined the King's
service--he would feel almost content.

As yet no fear of a King's ship had crossed his mind. In those days ten
years would go by, and save for some passing merchantman bound to China
by the Outer Route, which would sweep past miles away before the strong
trade wind, no ship had he seen. And here, on this forgotten island, he
might have lived and died, but that one day a sandal-wooding brigantine
was becalmed about four miles away from the island, and Brandon
determined to board her, and endeavour to obtain a few tools and other
necessaries from her captain.

With half-a-dozen of his most trusted native friends he stepped into
a canoe, and reached the brigantine just