tion. Would he ever forget, standing there as he did, unremarked,
solitary, shivering in his rags, the soft hand that felt through the
darkness for his own, the voice so gentle, low, and sweet that whispered
to him, "Come, Jack, you my white mans now!"

This was the beginning of Jack's new life. He became a member of the
chief's family, sleeping with the others at night on the outspread mats,
and taking his share, by day, of all the work and play of the little
Samoan village. He weeded _taro_, he carried stones for the building of
the new church, he helped to lay out nets, he speared fish, he played
cricket and _ta ti'a_. By nature neither an idler nor a shirk, he was
consumed, besides, with a desire to repay the kindness and hospitality
of his hosts; and the old chief, his friend from the start, now became
his captain, to whom he rendered the unquestioning obedience of a
seaman. And old Faalelei, whose loose authority was often disregarded by
his own subjects, delighted in the possession of this stalwart white, so
willing, so eager, so ingenious in the mending of boats and nets--a man
to whom the mechanism of a gun had no secrets, and in whose hands a
single hatchet became a tool chest.

Living thus among the only mild, courteous, and refined people he had
ever known, Jack insensibly altered and improved. His loud voice grew
softer, his boisterous laugh less explosive, and his rough ways gave
place to a clumsy imitation of Samoan good manners. Little by little the
uncouth sailor patterned himself on the model of his new friends, and
he, whose every second word had been an oath, whose only repartee a
blow, now set himself to learn the most ceremonious language in the
world, and the only one, perhaps, in which one cannot swear!

And Fetuao? When he had first taken up his abode in Faalelei's house he
had never doubted, seeing the girl's extravagant affection for him, and
knowing the laxity of the native people, that it would not be long
before he might form with her one of those irregular connections so
common in the islands; and, indeed, it grew daily more plain to him that
he had but to ask to have. But Jack, not a little to his own
astonishment, and stirred by undreamed-of instincts and undreamed-of
scruples, put the idea from him with a hesitation he could hardly
explain to himself. In his wicked and lawless past he had known every
kind of woman but a good woman; he had seen, in a thousand water-side
dives, every va