my
hooker, an' 'Riar sees me standin' in front ev her without givin' her
any warnin' I was comin', she gets that skeered that she drops kerwallop
on the floor, an' when she come to, an' heerd that the _Mattie Casey_
was gone, waal, thet jest sorter finished her. Waal, she hung on ter
life fur a year or so, kep' getting more powerful weak in the intelleck
every day; an' when she died, my little Hope was on'y four years old.
An' Hope died when I was away servin' in the _Iroquois_ lookin' fur
Semmes,... an' I ain't got no one else to keer fur me naow.... Waal,
goodbye, Prout; I guess I'll beat up ter windward of this grewp, and
then make a bee-line fur Honolulu."

In another minute he had shambled down to the boat, and as the sun sank
below the line of coconuts on the lee side of Nukutavau, the schooner
swept away into the darkness. Then Prout, taking the little girl in his
arms, followed old Malineta to the house of Patiaro the chief, and again
took up the thread of his lonely existence.

Four years had come and gone. In his quiet house, under the shadow of
the ever-rustling palms, Prout lay upon his rough couch of coarse
mats, and little Mercedes stood beside him with her tiny hand upon his
death-dewed forehead.

The missionary ship had just anchored in the lagoon, and Patiaro and his
men had paddled off to her, so that, save for the low murmur of voices
of women and children in the houses near by, the village lay silent.

Weeping softly, the child placed her tender cheek against the rugged
face of the dying man, and whispered:

"What is it, my father, that aileth thee?"

He drew her slender figure to him with his failing hands and kissed her
with pallid lips, and then Prout the trader gave up the battle of life.

MRS. CLINTON

I.

As the sun set blood red, a thick white fog crept westward, and the
miserable fever-stricken wretches that lay gasping and dying on
the decks of the transport _Breckenbridge_ knew that another day of
calm--and horror--waited them with the coming of the dawn on the morrow.

Twenty miles away the dark outline of the Australian shore shone out
green and purple with the dying sunshafts, and then quickly dulled again
to the sombre shades of the coming night and the white mantle of fog.

On the starboard side of the high quarterdeck of the transport the
master stood gazing seaward with a worn and troubled face, and as he
viewed the gathering fog a heavy sigh broke from him.