ed at the tobacco; the others, who did not know
its use, turned away in indifference, but eagerly handled the knives.

*****

All this time the chiefs eyes kept wandering to the face of Hallam,
the boatswain's mate, whose every movement he followed with a curious,
wistful expression. Suddenly he turned to the lieutenant and said, in
curious broken English, that cocoanuts were easily to be obtained, but
turtle were more difficult; yet if the ship would wait he would promise
to get them as many as were wanted by daylight next morning.

"All right," said Lieutenant T------, "bear a hand with the cocoanuts
now, and I'll tell the captain what you say;" and then to Hallam, "If
this calm keeps up, Hallam, I'm afraid the ship will either have to
anchor or tow off the land--she's drifting in fast."

In an hour the boat was filled with cocoanuts, and Lieutenant T------
sent her off to the ship with a note to the captain, remaining himself
with Hallam, another leading seaman named Lacy, and five bluejackets.
Presently the chief, in his strange, halting English, asked the officer
to come to his house and sit down and rest while his wife prepared food
for him. And as they walked the native's eyes still sought the face of
Hallam the boatswain.

His wife was a slender, graceful girl, and her modest, gentle demeanour
as she waited upon her husband himself impressed the lieutenant
considerably.

"Where did you learn to speak English?" the officer asked his host after
they had finished.

He answered slowly, "I been sailor man American whaleship two year;" and
then, pointing to a roll of soft mats, said, "You like sleep, you sleep.
Me like go talk your sailor man."

*****

Hallam, morose and gloomy, had left the others, and was sitting under
the shade of a _toa_-tree, when he heard the sound of a footstep, and
looking up saw the dark-brown, muscular figure of the native chief
beside him.

"Well," he said, surlily, "what the h---- do you want?"

The man made him no answer--only looked at him with a strange, eager
light of expectancy in his eyes, and his lips twitched nervously, but no
sound issued from them. For a moment the rude, scowling face of the old
seaman seemed to daunt him. Then, with a curious choking sound in his
throat, he sprang forward and touched the other man on the arm.

"_Father!_ Don't you know me?"

With trembling hands and blanched face the old man rose to his feet, and
in a hoarse whisper there escape