hrew back his shoulders, and straightened up his head.

"I guess I won't," he began, then, feebly surrendering to the gnaw of
desire, he reached hastily for the glass, as if in fear that it would be
withdrawn.

IV

It is a long traverse from Papeete in the Societies to the Little Coral
Sea--from 100 west longitude to 150 east longitude--as the crow flies
the equivalent to a voyage across the Atlantic. But the _Kittiwake_ did
not go as the crow flies. David Grief's numerous interests diverted
her course many times. He stopped to take a look-in at uninhabited Rose
Island with an eye to colonizing and planting cocoa-nuts. Next, he paid
his respects to Tui Manua, of Eastern Samoa, and opened an intrigue for
a share of the trade monopoly of that dying king's three islands. From
Apia he carried several relief agents and a load of trade goods to the
Gilberts. He peeped in at Ontong-Java Atoll, inspected his plantations
on Ysabel, and purchased lands from the salt-water chiefs of
northwestern Malaita. And all along this devious way he made a man of
Aloysius Pankburn.

That thirster, though he lived aft, was compelled to do the work of a
common sailor. And not only did he take his wheel and lookout, and heave
on sheets and tackles, but the dirtiest and most arduous tasks were
appointed him. Swung aloft in a bosun's chair, he scraped the masts and
slushed down. Holystoning the deck or scrubbing it with fresh limes
made his back ache and developed the wasted, flabby muscles. When
the _Kittiwake_ lay at anchor and her copper bottom was scrubbed with
cocoa-nut husks by the native crew, who dived and did it under water,
Pankburn was sent down on his shift and as many times as any on the
shift.

"Look at yourself," Grief said. "You are twice the man you were when you
came on board. You haven't had one drink, you didn't die, and the poison
is pretty well worked out of you. It's the work. It beats trained nurses
and business managers. Here, if you're thirsty. Clap your lips to this."

With several deft strokes of his heavy-backed sheath-knife, Grief
clipped a triangular piece of shell from the end of a husked
drinking-cocoa-nut. The thin, cool liquid, slightly milky and
effervescent, bubbled to the brim. With a bow, Pankburn took the natural
cup, threw his head back, and held it back till the shell was empty. He
drank many of these nuts each day. The black steward, a New Hebrides boy
sixty years of age, and his assistant, a