room,
and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The bright lamplight shone full
on his nude figure and the tangle of black hair that fell about his
now sun-darkened back and shoulders. And, as on that other evening long
before, when he sat crouching over his fire, his eyes sought Burton's
face with a look of implacable hatred.

'See if you can find out where the d--d brute comes from,' said Burton.

Von Hammer looked at Ridan intently for a minute, and then said one or
two words to him in a tongue that the overseer had never before heard.

With trembling limbs and a joyful wonder shining in his dark eyes, Rfdan
crept up to the supercargo, and then, in a voice of whispered sobs, he
told his two years' tale of bitter misery.

* * * * *

'Very well,' said Burton, an hour later, to Von Hammer, 'you can take
him. I don't want the brute here. But he is a dangerous devil, mind.
Where do you say he comes from?'

'Oneata--Saint David's Island--a little bit of a sandy atoll, as big as
Manono over there, and much like it, too. I know the place well--lived
there once when I was pearling, ten years ago. I don't think the natives
there see a white man more than once in five years. It's a very isolated
spot, off the north-east coast of New Guinea. "Bully" Hayes used to call
there once. However, let me have him. The _Mindora_ may go to Manila
next year; if so, I'll land him at Oneata on our way there. Anyway, he's
no good to you. And he told me just now that he has been waiting his
chance to murder you.'

The _Mindora_ returned to Apia to take in stores, and Von Hammer
took Ridan with him, clothed in a suit of blue serge, and with silent
happiness illumining his face. For his heart was leaping within him at
the thought of Oneata, and of those who numbered him with the dead;
and when he clambered up the ship's side and saw Pulu, the big Samoan,
working on deck with the other native sailors, he flung his arms around
him and gave him a mighty hug, and laughed like a pleased child when Von
Hammer told him that Pulu would be his shipmate till he saw the green
land and white beach of Oneata once more.

* * * * *

Six months out from Samoa the _Mindora_ was hove-to off Choiseul Island,
in the Solomon Group, waiting for her boat. Von Hammer and four hands
had gone ashore to land supplies for a trader, and the brig was awaiting
his return. There was a heavy sea running on t