his boat, to torture him with recognition, with the
questions they would ask, with their story of Tehea's death. Then he
laughed at his own fears, remembering his white hair and the intervening
generation. Time had passed over Borabora, too. The world, he
remembered, was older by forty years--older and sadder and emptier.

* * * * *

He swung himself up the ladder, mounted the bridge, and put the vessel
on her course. The telegraph rang, the engineers repeated back the
signal, and the great battleship, vibrating with her mighty engines,
resumed once more her ponderous way.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Existence doubtful; position doubtful," familiar
contractions still on any Pacific chart.]

O'S HEAD

Silver Tongue loved Rosalie, and Rosalie loved Silver Tongue, and ever
since they had first met at the Taufusi Club dance their friends had
seen the inevitable finish of their acquaintance. They were invited
everywhere together, and the affair had progressed from the first or
furtive stage to the secondary or solemn Sunday drive about the Eleele
Sa. The third, that of carpenters adding a story to the bakery and
dressmakers hard at work in Miss Potter's little establishment, was
looming up close in view.

Never was a match in Apia that gave a rosier promise of success. Silver
Tongue, so called by the Samoans on account of his beautiful voice (but
who in ordinary life answered to the homelier appellation of
Oppenstedt), had been making a very good thing out of the Southern Cross
Bakery, and was regarded throughout Apia as a man of responsibility and
substance. He was a tall, spare German of about forty, who, like the
most of us, had followed the sea before fate had brought him to the
islands, there in years gone by to marry a Samoan maid and settle down.
The little Samoan had died, leaving behind her nothing but a memory in
Silver Tongue's heart, a tangled grave in the foreign cemetery, and a
host of relations who lived in tumble-down quarters in the rear of the
bakery. In one way and another these hungry mouths must have been a
considerable drain on Silver Tongue's resources; and though they feebly
responded to his bounty--one by driving a natty cart and delivering hot
morning rolls, and another by pilfering firewood for the furnace--the
account (if one had been made) was far from even. But to any objection
to this Quixotic generosity Silver Tongue had a reply ever ready on his