enough to tell him.

"You say this: 'Good morning, Captain; have you had a good voyage and
fair weather?'"

He greedily repeated each word after me, very slowly and carefully; then
he asked me to tell him again. I did so. Then he sighed with pleasure.

"Kind friend, just a few times more," he said.

I told him the sentence over and over again for at least a score of
times; and his smooth, fat face beamed when at last he was able to say
the words alone. Then he began whispering it. Five minutes passed, and
he tackled me again.

"Is this right?--'Good--mornin',
kipen--ha--ad--you--have--goot--foy--age--and--fair wesser?'"

"That is right," I said impatiently, "but ask me no more to-night.
Dost not know that it is unlucky to talk when fishing for _takuo_ and
_tautau?_"

"Dear friend, _that_ we believed only in the heathen days. _Now_ we are
Christians."

He paused a moment, then raised his face to the stars and softly
murmured, "Good--mornin' kapen--haad--you--you--have--goot--foyage--and
wesser--and fair--wesser?" Then he looked at me interrogatively. I took
no notice.

He toyed with his line and bent an earnest gaze down in the placid
depths of the water as if he saw the words down there, then taking a
turn of his line round a thwart, he put his two elbows on his enormous
naked knees, and resting his broad, terraced chin on the palms of his
hands, he said slowly and mournfully, as if he were communing with some
one in the spirit-world--

"Good--mornin'--kapen. Haad--you--haave----" &c., &c.

Then I sharply spoke a few words of English--simple in themselves, but
well understood by nearly every native of the South Seas. He looked
surprised, and also reproachful, but went on in a whisper so faint that
I could scarcely hear it; sometimes quickly and excitedly, sometimes
doubtingly and with quivering lips, now raising his eyes to heaven, and
with drooping lower jaw gurgling the words in his thick throat; then
sighing and muttering them with closed eyes and a rapt expression of
countenance, till with a sudden snort of satisfaction, he ceased--at
least I thought he had. He took up a young coconut, drank it, and began
again as fresh as ever.

"Stop!" I said angrily. "Art thou a grown man or a child? Here is some
tobacco, fill thy pipe, and cease muttering like a _tama valea_ (idiot
boy)."

He shook his head. "Nay, if I smoke, I may forget. I am very happy
to-night, kind friend. Good-mor----"

"May Erikobai"