n."

I saw how interested Miss Jelliffe was, and did my best to draw the man
out. Like most real fighters he was little inclined to live his own
combats over again, yet when he was once started it took little effort to
keep him going. After this I questioned Frenchy, very carefully, for he
is even less inclined than the other fishermen to talk about himself. I
have never known the secret, if there be one, in the life of this man,
alone of his people on this shore, with that child of his. He is always
ever so friendly, and looks at one with big, dog-like, trusting eyes, but
I have never sought to obtain a confidence he does not seem to be willing
to bestow on any one. For this reason I merely asked him whether he had
traveled much in foreign lands, as a sailor.

Then, as he puffed quietly at his pipe, the man gradually expanded just a
little, though never speaking of anything he had personally accomplished.
His tales, contrasting with Sammy's, took us to hot countries, with names
that were rather vague to us.

He led us up some rivers tenanted by strange beasts wallowing in fetid
mud which, when disturbed, sent forth bubbles that burst with foul odors,
and made more unbearable the tepid moisture one had to breathe. Hostile,
yellow people in strange garb slunk along the banks, hiding behind
bamboos and watching the boats rowed by white men nearly succumbing to
the torpor of the misty heat, while pulling with arms enfeebled by the
fevers of what he called _La Riviere Rouge_. There had been fighting,
nights and days of it, and once he had forgotten everything and awakened
on board a ship that was out of sight of land. Now the trade winds were
blowing, and many of the sick and wounded felt better, yet the great
sharks kept on following because of the long bundles that were daily
dropped overboard, done up in sail cloth and weighted at the feet. And
when one arrived in port there were poor old women who called for
Jean-Marie and for Joseph, and who sank fainting on the docks. But others
were happy.

I could see that Miss Jelliffe was deeply interested in these tales of
things related very simply, very naturally, as if the sailor had spoken
of catching squid or under-running trawls. She wondered, as I did, why
this man who had sailed so many seas should have drifted here and taken
up his life in a strange land with the little yellow-haired boy in which
his heart was enwrapped.

Sammy and Susie listened open-mouthed to tho