throughout the North Pacific, a very smart schooner, of
which eventually Carr took command, and sailed her for him for a
couple of years. Then Remington, who, old as he was, was of an eager,
adventurous disposition, decided to seek new fields for his enterprise
among the low-lying equatorial islands to the south, and Carr and he
parted, the former resuming his wanderings among the wild and murderous
peoples of New Britain and the Solomon Archipelago. Since then they had
never met, though the young man had heard that Remington, accompanied
by one or more of his children, had opened up a trading business in the
Gilbert Islands.

Exhausted with the violence of the fit of ague, Carr had dropped off
into a broken slumber, from which he did not awaken till eight bells
were struck, and the steward came to ask him to try and eat a little.
Chard, Hendry and the two traders were below in the saloon, drinking,
smoking, and talking business; Remington and his daughter, who had
declined to join them at supper, were still on deck waiting for Carr to
awaken; Malua, Carr's native servant, still sat beside his master, from
whom he was never long absent, and from the main deck came the murmur of
voices from the native crew, who were lying on their mats enjoying the
cool breath of the evening land breeze.

The moment the young trader opened his eyes Tessa's father came over to
him and they began to talk.

"I was delighted beyond words to learn you were on board, Harvey," said
the old man. "I didn't care about the idea of letting Tess go away under
the care of strangers; but now I shall know that she will be well looked
after, and that she will be in Ponape in less than a month."

Carr heard him in silence, then he said frankly, "And I shall be
delighted too; but, at the same time, I wish she were leaving you by
any other ship than this. Cannot you keep her with you until one of
the German ships come along? Is it necessary she must go home by this
steamer?"

"Time is everything, Harvey. Her mother is ill, and wrote to me a few
months ago, begging me, if I could not return myself, to at least try
and send Tess home. The two other girls are married, as you know, and
my two boys are both away--one is second mate on the _Jacinta_, of New
Bedford, and the other is in California. And I can't leave Drummond's
Island for another four months or so. I have made a good business here
and throughout the group, and to leave it now to the care of an