nce. There's no love lost between missionaries and traders. That's
what made it so strange to see Captain Coe going the way he did, and
taking up with all that nigger-loving and "Johnny, how's your soul?" We
could only see one reason, and that was Alethea Tweedie; and the betting
was about even whether he'd pull it off or not. But if we didn't _talk_
to the Tweedies, I guess there was mighty little that went on there we
didn't know of--whether it was turtle steak for breakfast, or the tiff
they had about her wearing too gauzy a dress at the party Coe gave
aboard the _Peep o' Day_.

He did it up in style, with bunting and Chinese lanterns and the king,
and afterwards there was fireworks. Oh, my, yes! a regular blow-out,
with the crew in new jumpers and two boatloads of flowers and _moso'oi_!
We all asked one another where it was going to end, what with the picnic
next day, and him always at the Mission house. But we might have saved
our breath, as far as any scandal was concerned, for, instead of up
stick and away, with the lady locked in his cabin, like some of the
beach had fondly hoped, what did Coe do but turn missionary himself! Got
religion, by God! till you couldn't have known him for the same master
mariner; while John Rau and Lum, not to be behindhand neither, cavorted
into the holy swim with a whoop and a bang! The captain went off
terrific--like everything he did--making Billy Jones's cousin marry his
wife, and Peter Extrum marry _his_; and there was more half-caste
baptizing and squealing and certificating than I remember since the
tidal wave of Eighty-one!

Coe put it all down to conviction and a change of heart, but anybody
could see it was Alethea Tweedie who was _his_ religion. When he prayed,
which he used to do tremendous, it was all the time to Mrs. Tweedie; and
when he said the kingdom of heaven, you knew mighty well that to him it
was the coral Mission house on the hill. He put her on a pedestal a mile
high, and kept her at the top by worshiping so hard at the bottom. I
guess she couldn't have got off without stepping all over him, and was
just forced to be a saint whether she wanted to or no. Not but what she
was as good as gold, and a pattern for any young white woman to go by,
but her eyes always kind of melted when she looked at Coe; which was no
wonder, as he stood six feet high and straight as a dart, and every girl
in the island was wild about him; and she had an imperious little way of
treat