d from his lips a name that he had
long years ago cursed and forgotten. His hands opened and shut again
convulsively, and then his savage, vindictive nature asserted itself
again as he found his voice, and with the rasping accents of passion
poured out curses upon the brown, half-naked man that stood before him.
Then he turned to go. But the other man put out a detaining hand.

*****

"It is as you say. I am a disgraced man. But you haven't heard why I
deserted from the _Tagus_. Listen while I tell you. I was flogged. I was
only a boy, and it broke my heart."

"Curse you, you chicken-hearted sweep! I've laid the cat on the back of
many a better man than myself, and none of 'em ever disgraced themselves
by runnin' away and turnin' into a nigger, like you!"

The man heard the sneer with unmoved face, then resumed--

"It broke my heart. And when I was hiding in Dover, and my mother used
to come and dress my wounds, do you remember what happened?"

"Aye, you naked swab, I do: your father kicked you out!"

"And I got caught again, and put in irons, and got more cat. Two years
afterwards I cleared again in Sydney, from the _Sirius_.... And I came
here to live and die among savages. That's nigh on eight years ago."

There was a brief silence. The old man, with fierce, scornful eyes,
looked sneeringly at the wild figure of the broken wanderer, and then
said--

"What's to stop me from telling our lieutenant you're a deserter? I
would, too, by God, only I don't want my shipmates to know I've got a
nigger for a son."

The gibe passed unheeded, save for a sudden light that leapt into the
eyes of the younger man, then quickly died away.

"Let us part in peace," he said. "We will never meet again. Only tell me
one thing--is my mother dead?"

"Yes."

"Thank God for that," he murmured. Then without another word the outcast
turned away and disappeared among the cocoa-palms.

*****

The second boat from the _Pleiades_ brought the captain, and as he and
the lieutenant stood and talked they watched the natives carrying down
the cocoa-nuts.

"Hurry them up, Hallam," said Lieutenant T------; "the tide is falling
fast. By the by, where is that fellow Lacy; I don't see him about?"

As he spoke a woman's shriek came from the chiefs house, which stood
some distance apart from the other houses, and a tall brown man sprang
out from among the other natives about the boats and dashed up the
pathway to the village.

"Quick, Ha