re you going to do it?" and the captain bent forward his foxy face
and grinned in anticipation.

"Same old way as with that Raratongan girl last year. She'll go to sleep
after supper, and I can open any door in the saloon, as you know, don't
you, old man?" and he laughed coarsely. "Dear, dear, what times we have
had together, Louis, my esteemed churchwarden of Darling Point, Sydney!"

The Dane tugged at his beard, and then poured out some brandy for
himself and his fellow scoundrel. "We have, we have, Sam," he said,
uneasily. "But what about the native woman who sleeps with her?"

"The native woman, when _she_ awakes, my Christian friend, will find
herself in the trade-room in the company of Mr. Tim Donnelly, one of the
firemen. And Mr. Tim Donnelly, to whom I have given two sovereigns,
will bear me out, if necessary, that 'the woman tempted him, and he did
fall.' Also he will be prepared to swear that this native woman, Maoni,
told him that her mistress expected a visit from Mr. Chard, and had
asked her to be out of the way."

"Well, after that."

"After that, my dear Christian friend, with the rudely executed diagrams
in sticking-plaster on the facial cuticle, my pious churchwarden with
the large family of interesting girls--after that, Miss Tessa Remington
will be glad to marry Mr. Samuel Chard, inasmuch as when _she_ awakes it
will be under the same improper conditions as those of the dissolute
Tim Donnelly and the flighty Miss Maoni; for the beauteous Tessa will
be fortuitously discovered by Captain Louis Hendry and several other
persons on board, in such circumstances that an immediate marriage of
the indiscreet lovers by one of the American missionaries at Ponape
will present the only solution of what would otherwise be a 'terrible
scandal.'"

"And what will you do with this fellow Carr?"

"Chuck him ashore at the Mortlocks," replied Chard with an oath; "we'll
be there in a couple of days, and I'll kick him over the side if he
turns rusty. Hillingdon doesn't like him, so we are quite safe."

"When is the love-making to come off?" asked Hendry, with a fiend-like
grin.

"As soon as we are clear of Carr--or sooner; to-night maybe. We must log
it that he was continually trying to cause the native crew to mutiny,
and that for the safety of the ship we got rid of him. Hillingdon will
back us up."

*****

Tessa did not appear at supper. She kept to her cabin with Maoni, her
dear Maoni, who, though but litt