if
I was up there."

He looked at the slender mast with anger. It was all very well for a
native who had been used to climbing up coconut trees all his life. He
was fat and heavy.

"Come down," he shouted. "You're no more use than a dead dog. We'll just
have to go along the reef till we find the opening."

It was a seventy-ton schooner with paraffin auxiliary, and it ran, when
there was no head wind, between four and five knots an hour. It was a
bedraggled object; it had been painted white a very long time ago, but
it was now dirty, dingy, and mottled. It smelt strongly of paraffin and
of the copra which was its usual cargo. They were within a hundred feet
of the reef now and the captain told the steersman to run along it till
they came to the opening. But when they had gone a couple of miles he
realised that they had missed it. He went about and slowly worked back
again. The white foam of the reef continued without interruption and now
the sun was setting. With a curse at the stupidity of the crew the
skipper resigned himself to waiting till next morning.

"Put her about," he said. "I can't anchor here."

They went out to sea a little and presently it was quite dark. They
anchored. When the sail was furled the ship began to roll a good deal.
They said in Apia that one day she would roll right over; and the owner,
a German-American who managed one of the largest stores, said that no
money was big enough to induce him to go out in her. The cook, a Chinese
in white trousers, very dirty and ragged, and a thin white tunic, came
to say that supper was ready, and when the skipper went into the cabin
he found the engineer already seated at table. The engineer was a long,
lean man with a scraggy neck. He was dressed in blue overalls and a
sleeveless jersey which showed his thin arms tatooed from elbow to
wrist.

"Hell, having to spend the night outside," said the skipper.

The engineer did not answer, and they ate their supper in silence. The
cabin was lit by a dim oil lamp. When they had eaten the canned apricots
with which the meal finished the Chink brought them a cup of tea. The
skipper lit a cigar and went on the upper deck. The island now was only
a darker mass against the night. The stars were very bright. The only
sound was the ceaseless breaking of the surf. The skipper sank into a
deck-chair and smoked idly. Presently three or four members of the crew
came up and sat down. One of them had a banjo and another