seized his wrist in a grip of iron, and drew him aside.

"The man who draws a pistol in my house, Mr Motley, does a foolish
thing," he said, in quiet, contemptuous tones, as he threw the
supercargo's revolver into a corner.

With set teeth and clenched hands Motley flung himself into a chair,
unable to speak.

Warren, still seated on the table, swung his foot nonchalantly to and
fro, and then began at Riedermann.

"Why, how's this, Captain Riedermann? Don't you back up your
supercargo's little quarrels, or have you left your pistol on board?
Ah, no, you haven't. I can see it there right enough. Modesty forbids
you putting a bullet into a man in the presence of a lady, eh?" Then
slewing round again, he addressed Motley: "By God! sir, it is well for
you that we are in a white man's house, and that that man is my friend
and took away that pistol from your treacherous hand. If you had fired
at me I would have booted you from one end of Funafuti beach to the
other--and I've a damned good mind to do it now, but won't, as Taplin
has to do some business with you."

"That will do, Warren," I said. "We don't want to make a scene in
Taplin's house. Let us go away and allow him to finish his business."

Still glaring angrily at Riedermann and Motley, Warren got down slowly
from the table. Then we bade Taplin and Nerida good-bye and went
aboard.

At daylight we saw Taplin and his wife go off in the ALIDA'S boat. They
waved their hands to us in farewell as the boat pulled past the brig,
and then the schooner hove-up anchor, and with all sail set, stood away
down to the north-west passage of the lagoon.

A year or so afterward we were on a trading voyage to the islands of
the Tubuai Group, and were lying becalmed, in company with a New
Bedford whaler. Her skipper came on board the brig, and we started
talking of Taplin, whom the whale-ship captain knew.

"Didn't you hear?" he said. "The ALIDA never showed up again. 'Turned
turtle,' I suppose, somewhere in the islands, like all those slashing,
over-masted, 'Frisco-built schooners do, sooner or later."

"Poor Taplin," said Warren, "I thought somehow we would never see him
again."

* * * * *

Five years had passed. Honest old Warren, fiery-tempered and
true-hearted, had long since died of fever in the Solomons, and I was
supercargo with a smart young American skipper in the brigantine
PALESTINE, when we one day sailed along the weather-side of a tiny
little atoll in the