t he
came on deck again in a quarter of an hour, and shaking hands cordially
with the missionary, ordered us into our boat and returned to the
schooner, which was immediately put before the wind. In a few minutes
the _Olive Branch_ was left far behind us.

That afternoon, as I was down below at dinner, I heard the men talking
about this curious ship.

"I wonder," said one, "why our captain looked so sweet on yon
swallow-tailed supercargo o' pigs and Gospels? If it had been an
ordinary trader, now, he would have taken as many o' the pigs as he
required and sent the ship with all on board to the bottom."

"Why, Dick, you must be new to these seas if you don't know that!" cried
another. "The captain cares as much for the Gospel as you do (an'
that's precious little); but he knows, and everybody knows, that the
only place among the southern islands where a ship can put in and get
what she wants in comfort is where the Gospel has been sent to. There
are hundreds o' islands, at this blessed moment, where you might as well
jump straight into a shark's maw as land without a band o' thirty
comrades armed to the teeth to back you."

"Ay," said a man with a deep scar over his right eye. "Dick's new to
the work. But if the captain takes us for a cargo o' sandal-wood to the
Feejees, he'll get a taste o' these black gentry in their native
condition. For my part, I don't know, and I don't care, what the Gospel
does to them; but I know that when any o' the islands chance to get it,
trade goes all smooth and easy. But where they ha'n't got it, Beelzebub
himself could hardly desire better company."

"Well, you ought to be a good judge," cried another, laughing, "for
you've never kept any company but the worst all your life!"

"Ralph Rover!" shouted a voice down the hatchway; "captain wants you,
aft."

Springing up the ladder, I hastened to the cabin, pondering as I went
the strange testimony borne by these men to the effect of the Gospel on
savage natures--testimony which, as it was perfectly disinterested, I
had no doubt whatever was strictly true.

On coming again on deck I found Bloody Bill at the helm, and as we were
alone together, I tried to draw him into conversation. After repeating
to him the conversation in the forecastle about the missionaries, I
said:

"Tell me, Bill: is this schooner really a trader in sandal-wood?"

"Yes, Ralph, she is; but she's just as really a pirate. The black flag
you saw flying