d the cheers of the bystanders on the quay and in the
embowered street. He looked down at the deck, and he caught sight of
a capstan-bar, which he gazed at longingly. Any blow would send him
to prison, but why not for a sheep instead of a lamb?

He hesitated, and lifted his eyes to the black brow of the skipper,
lowering within touch.

"Make fast your line about that cannon!" said the master, sharply.

The sailors waited joyfully for the fray, and the Raratonga stevedores
on other vessels stopped their work. But nothing happened.

"Aye, aye, sir," said the mate, and shouted the order to the men
ashore. The captain regarded him balefully, muttered a few words,
and returned to the club for a Dr. Funk. That medical man ranked here
above Colonel Rickey, who invented the gin-rickey in America.

Herr Funk was better known in the Cercle Bougainville than Charcot
or Lister or Darwin. The doctor part of the drink's name made it seem
almost like a prescription, and often, when amateurs sought to evade a
second or third, the old-timers laughed at their fears of ill results,
and said:

"That old Doctor Funk knew what he was about. Why, he kept people
alive on that mixture. It's like mother's milk."

Chapter VII

The Noa-Noa comes to port--Papeete en fete--Rare scene at the Tiare
Hotel--The New Year celebrated--Excitement at the wharf--Battle of
the Limes and Coal.

The Noa-Noa came in after many days of suspense, during which rumors
and reports of war grew into circumstantial statements of engagements
at sea and battles on land. A mysterious vessel was said to have
slipped in at night with despatches for the governor. All was sensation
and canard, on dit and oui dire, and all was proved false when the
liner came through the passage in the reef. Nothing had happened to
disturb the peace of nations, but a dock strike in Auckland had tied
up the ship. The relief of mind of the people of Papeete caused a wave
of joy to pass over them. Business men and officials, tourists who
expected to leave for America and the outside world on the Noa-Noa,
overflowed with evidence of their delight. The consuls of the powers
met at the Cercle Militaire the governor, and laughed hectically at
the absurd balloon of tittle-tattle which had been pricked by the
Noa-Noa's facts. There had been absolutely nothing to the rumors but
the fears or the antipathies of nationals in Tahiti.

It was the holiday season, the New Year at hand, and, moreo