of the conversation between the little lady and myself, for after we had
walked on a bit he said, suddenly--

"I think I'll go aboard the _Menchikoff_ and ship; she wants some hands,
and I would like to clear out of this. Except two or three that have
known me for a long time, like yourself, every one looks crooked at me."

"I think you are right, Hickson, in going away. Samoa is a bad place
for an idle man. But won't you come another trip with us The old man{*}
thinks a lot of you, and there's always a second mate's berth for you
with him."

* The "old man," i.e., the captain.

Hickson's eyes flashed fire. "No! I'd as lief go to hell as ship again
with a man that once put me in irons, and disgraced me before a lot of
Kanakas. I've got White Blood enough in me to make me remember that.
Good-bye," and he shook hands with me; "I'll wait here till the
_Menchikoff's_ boat comes ashore and go off and see Bannister."

Poor Hickson. He was proud of his White Blood, and the incident he
alluded to was a bitter memory to him. Could he ever forget it? I never
could, and thought of it as I was being pulled off on board.

*****

It was at Jakoits Harbour--in Ponape--that it happened. Hickson and I
were going ashore in the long boat to buy a load of yams for our native
crew, when he began to tell me something of his former life.

His had been a strange and chequered career, and in his wanderings as
a trader and as a boatsteerer in a Hobart Town whaler, he had traversed
every league of the wide Pacific. With his father and two sisters he
had, till a few years or so before he joined us, been trading at Yap, in
the Western Carolines. Here the wandering old white man had died. Of his
two sisters, one, the eldest, had perished with her sailor husband by
the capsizing of a schooner which he commanded. The youngest, then
about nine years old, was taken care of by the captain of a whaler that
touched at Yap, until he placed her in charge of the then newly-founded
American Mission at Ponape, and in the same ship, Hickson went on his
wanderings again, joining us at Tahiti. And I could see as he talked to
me that he had a deep affection for her.

"What part of Ponape is she living on?" I asked.

"I don't know, I'm sure. Here, I suppose; and if you don't mind, while
you're weighing the yams, I'll go up to the mission-house and inquire."

"Right you are, Hickson," I said, "but don't forget to get back early,
it's a beastly risk