had had not much thought for a record. There was little more
to tell, for after the lightning, the sharks, and the swordfish,
they had had no unusual experiences. They had made the voyage of
nearly four thousand miles from the pit of water in which they had
left the El Dorado, and were glad that they had not stayed behind on
Easter Island. Steve had only good words for the skipper's skill as
a seaman, but now that they were there, he would like to be assured
of his wages. The captain said he did not know what the owners would
do about paying Steve for the time since the El Dorado sank. He
was sure she had gone down immediately, for, he said, he would not
have left his ship had he not been certain she could not stay on the
surface. He contrasted his arrival in Papeete with his coming years
before in the brig Lurline, when he brought the first phonograph to
the South Seas. Crowds had flocked to the quay to hear it, and it
was taken in a carriage all about the island.

The superb courage of these men, their marvelous seamanship, and their
survival of all the perils of their thousands of miles' voyage were
not lessened in interest or admiration by their personality. But one
realized daily, as one saw them chewing their quids, devouring rudely
the courses served by Lovaina, or talking childishly of their future,
that heroes are the creatures of opportunity. It is true Steve and Alex
were picked of all the crew for their sea knowledge and experience,
their nerve and willingness, by the sturdy captain, and that he, too,
was a man big in the primitive qualities, a viking, a companion for a
Columbus; but--they were peculiarly of their sept; types molded by the
wind-swept spaces of the vasty deep, chiseled by the stress of storm
and calm, of burning, glassy oceans, and the chilling, killing berg;
men set apart from all the creeping children of the solid earth, and
trained to seize the winds from heaven for their wings, to meet with
grim contempt the embattled powers of sky and wave, and then, alas! on
land to become the puny sport of merchant, crimp, and money-changer,
and rum and trull.

Goeltz, Lying Bill, Llewellyn, and McHenry sat in the Cercle
Bougainville with eager looks as I read them the diary of Steve
Drinkwater. The seamen held opinions of the failure of Captain Benson's
seamanship at certain points, and all knew the waters through which
he had come.

"Many of the people of Mangareva came from Easter Island," said