he reason of his absence. Captain Green himself wiped
out this expectation. He jocosely intimated to Farnum one afternoon that
he had no intention of calling the Islands.

"When we get through this six months' cruise you'll be a first-rate
sailorman, son, and you'll get a sailorman's wages," he added genially.

The shanghaied man met his eye squarely. "I think I could arrange
to draw on Verden for a thousand dollars if you would drop me at the
Islands."

"Not for twenty thousand. You're going to stay with us till we get to
the Solomon Islands, and don't you forget it."

Bully Green had taken rather a fancy to this amiable young man who had
taken so sensible a view of the little misadventure that had befallen
him, but of course business was business. He had been paid to keep him
out of the way and he intended to fulfil the contract.

"Here I'm educatin' you, makin' an able-bodied seaman out of you, son.
You had ought to be grateful," he grinned.

"Oh, I am," Jeff agreed with a twinkle.

But Captain Green had reckoned without the weather. The _Nancy Hanks_
drifted into three days of calm and sultry heat. At the end of the third
day she began to rock gently beneath a murky sky.

"Dirty weather," predicted the mate, the same who had assisted at the
shanghaing. "When you see a satin sea turn indigo and that peculiar
shade in the sky you want to look out for squalls," he explained to
Jeff.

It came on them in a rush. The sun went out of a black sky like a blown
candle and the sea began to whip itself to a froth. The wind quickened,
boomed to a roar, and sent the schooner heeling to a squall across the
leaden waters. The open sea closed in on them. Before they could get in
sail and make secure the sheets ripped with a scream, braces parted and
the topmasts snapped off. The _Nancy_ went pitching forward into the
yawning deeps with drunken plunges from which it seemed she would never
emerge. Great combing seas toppled down and pounded the decks, while the
sailors clung to stays or whatever would give them a hold.

The squall lasted scarce an hour, but it left the schooner dismantled.
Her sheets were in ribbons, her topmasts and bowsprit gone. There was
nothing for it but a crippled beat toward the Islands.

Four days later she made an offing in the harbor at Honolulu just as a
liner was nosing her way out.

Bully Green ranged up beside Farnum and cast a speculative eye on him.

"Sport, I had ought to iron you and