e. The wind was blowing again, the sea was much smaller and more
regular, and I knew that I had passed through the center. Fortunately,
there were no sharks about. The hurricane had dissipated the ravenous
horde that had surrounded the death ship and fed off the dead.

It was about midday when the Petite Jeanne went to pieces, and it must
have been two hours afterwards when I picked up with one of her hatch
covers. Thick rain was driving at the time; and it was the merest chance
that flung me and the hatch cover together. A short length of line was
trailing from the rope handle; and I knew that I was good for a day,
at least, if the sharks did not return. Three hours later, possibly
a little longer, sticking close to the cover, and with closed eyes,
concentrating my whole soul upon the task of breathing in enough air to
keep me going and at the same time of avoiding breathing in enough water
to drown me, it seemed to me that I heard voices. The rain had ceased,
and wind and sea were easing marvelously. Not twenty feet away from me,
on another hatch cover were Captain Oudouse and the heathen. They were
fighting over the possession of the cover--at least, the Frenchman was.
"Paien noir!" I heard him scream, and at the same time I saw him kick
the kanaka.

Now, Captain Oudouse had lost all his clothes, except his shoes, and
they were heavy brogans. It was a cruel blow, for it caught the heathen
on the mouth and the point of the chin, half stunning him. I looked for
him to retaliate, but he contented himself with swimming about forlornly
a safe ten feet away. Whenever a fling of the sea threw him closer, the
Frenchman, hanging on with his hands, kicked out at him with both feet.
Also, at the moment of delivering each kick, he called the kanaka a
black heathen.

"For two centimes I'd come over there and drown you, you white beast!" I
yelled.

The only reason I did not go was that I felt too tired. The very thought
of the effort to swim over was nauseating. So I called to the kanaka to
come to me, and proceeded to share the hatch cover with him. Otoo, he
told me his name was (pronounced o-to-o ); also, he told me that he
was a native of Bora Bora, the most westerly of the Society Group. As
I learned afterward, he had got the hatch cover first, and, after some
time, encountering Captain Oudouse, had offered to share it with him,
and had been kicked off for his pains.

And that was how Otoo and I first came together. He wa