nesia--lonely
Easter Island, and thence to and fro amongst a hundred other islands.
He was vain of her beauty--the beauty that had led him to almost abandon
any intention of returning to civilisation; he was vain of the dark,
passionate eyes, the soft, wavy hair, and the proud little mouth
inherited from her Lusitanian father. Of this latter person, however,
neither Blackett nor Cerita, his wife, were over-proud--he was a
notorious old scamp and ex-pirate, even for that part of the Pacific,
and Cerita knew that Blackett had simply bought her from him as he would
buy a boat, or a bolt of canvas.

*****

Blackett, finding it impossible to make old Hutton drunk or get him to
turn in, resigned himself entirely to the old pirate, who, glancing
to the far end of the room, to where Cerita and his own wife, a
tall, lithe-limbed Aoba woman, were lying together on a mat smoking
cigarettes, proceeded to pour out the story of his countless murders and
minor villainies.

Blackett himself was a negatively-moral man. He could shoot a native if
necessity demanded, but would not do so hastily; and the old trader's
brutal delight in recounting his pot-shots only excited a disgust which
soon became visible in his face.

*****

"_That's_ all right, Mr. Blackett," said Hutton, with a hideous grin
distorting his monkeyish visage; "I'm only a-tellin' you of these
here things for your own good,... an' I ain't afeered of no man-o'-war
a-collarin' _me_. This here island is a place where you've got to sleep
with one eye open, an' the moment you sees a nigger lookin' crooked at
you put a lead pill in him--that is, if he's a stranger from somewheres.
An' the more you shoots the better you'll get on with your own nigs;
they likes you more and treats you better."

With a weary gesture, Blackett rose from his seat. "Thank you, Hutton,
for your advice. If I thought a nigger meant to send an arrow or a spear
through me I'd try to get the drop on him first. But I couldn't kill any
one in cold blood on mere suspicion. I could no more do that than--than
you could kill that Aoba wife of yours over there."

Old Hutton rose, too, and put a detaining hand on Blackett. "Look here,
now, an' I suppose you think I'm lyin'. If I thought that that there
Aoba wench was foolin' me in any way--sech as givin' away my tobacco
to a nigger buck, I'd have to wentilate her yaller hide or get laid out
myself."

Blackett shuddered. "I'm going to turn in. Let us have