seem to know the place."

"I do," he answered, quietly, "know it well, and know Martin, too.
You'll find him drunk."

They walked up the white path of broken coral and stood in the doorway
of the big front room. At the far end, on a native sofa, lay Martin; by
his side sat a young native girl fanning him. No one else.

The gaunt black-whiskered trader tried to rise, but with a varied string
of oaths lashed together he fell back, waving his hand to Denison in
recognition. The girl was not a native of the island--that could be seen
at a glance. She was as handsome as a picture, and after giving the two
white men a dignified greeting, in the Yap (Caroline Islands) dialect,
she resumed her fanning and smoking her cigarette.

"Martin," said the supercargo, "shake yourself together. What is the
matter? Are you sick, or is it only the usual drunk?"

"Both," came in tones that sounded as if his inside were lined with
cotton wool; "got a knife in my ribs six months back; never got well;
and I've been drinking all the time "--and then, with a silly smile of
childish vanity, "all over _her_. She's my new girl--wot d'ye think of
her? Ain't she a star?"

*****

All this time Chaplin stood back until Denison called him up and said to
the trader, "Our new captain, Martin!"

"By God," said the trader, slowly, "if he ain't the image of that ------
nigger-catching skipper that was here from Honolulu four years ago."

"That's me!" said Chaplin, coolly puffing away at his cigar, and taking
a seat near the sofa, with one swift glance of admiration at the face of
the girl.

In a few minutes Martin told his troubles. Some seven months previously
a ship had called at the island. He boarded her. She was a whaler making
south to the Kermadecs "sperming." The captain told Martin he had come
through the Pelews and picked up a big canoe with a chiefs retinue on
board, nearly dead from starvation. Many of them did die on board. Among
those left were two women, the wife and daughter of the chief--who was
the first to die. Making a long story short, Martin gave the captain
trade and cash to the tune of five hundred dollars for the two women,
and came ashore. Pensioning off his other wife, he took the young girl
himself and sold the mother to the local chief for a ton of copra.

A week afterwards a young native came outside his house, cutlass in
hand. He was a brother of the dismissed wife and meant fighting. Martin
darted out, his new lo