you should never come back, or even if it should be a very long
time before you come back, how are we going to know what we ought to do?
As far as I know the party you leave behind you, we would all be of
different opinions if any emergency arose. As long as you are with us, I
feel that, no matter what happens, the right thing will be done. But if
you are away--"

At this moment Mrs. Cliff was interrupted by the approach of Maka, who
wished very much to speak to the captain. As the negro was not a man who
would be likely to interrupt a conversation except for an important
reason, the captain followed him to a little distance. There he found, to
his surprise, that although he had left one person to speak to another,
the subject was not changed.

"Cap'n," said Maka, "when you go 'way, who's boss?"

The captain frowned, and yet he could not help feeling interested in this
anxiety regarding his successor. "Why do you ask that?" he said. "What
difference does it make who gives you your orders when I am gone?"

Maka shook his head. "Big difference," he said. "Cheditafa don' like boy
for boss. He wan' me tell you, if boy is boss, he don' wan' stay. He wan'
go 'long you."

"You can tell Cheditafa," said the captain, quickly, "that if I want him
to stay he'll stay, and if I want him to go he'll go. He has nothing to
say about that. So much for him. Now, what do you think?"

"Like boy," said Maka, "but not for boss."

The captain was silent for a moment. Here was a matter which really
needed to be settled. If he had felt that he had authority to do as he
pleased, he would have settled it in a moment.

"Cap'n big man. He know everyt'ing," said Maka. "But when cap'n go 'way,
boy t'ink he big man. Boy know nothin'. Better have woman for boss."

Captain Horn could not help being amused. "Which woman?" he asked.

"I say old one. Cheditafa say young one."

The captain was not a man who would readily discuss his affairs with any
one, especially with such a man as Maka; but now the circumstances were
peculiar, and he wanted to know the opinions of these men he was about to
leave behind him.

"What made you and Cheditafa think that way?" he asked.

"I t'ink old one know more," replied the negro, "and Cheditafa t'ink wife
make bes' boss when cap'n gone, and young one make bes' wife."

"You impertinent black scoundrels!" exclaimed the captain, taking a step
toward Maka, who bounced backward a couple of yards. "What do you mea