the line, which I
always counted years of prison; getting tabooed, and going down to the
Speak House to see and get it taken off; buying gin and going on a
break, and then repenting; sitting in the house at night with the lamp
for company; or walking on the beach and wondering what kind of a fool
to call myself for being where I was. There were no other whites upon my
island, and when I sailed to the next, rough customers made the most of
the society. Now to see these two when they came aboard was a pleasure.
One was a negro, to be sure; but they were both rigged out smart in
striped pyjamas and straw hats, and Case would have passed muster in a
city. He was yellow and smallish, had a hawk's nose to his face, pale
eyes, and his beard trimmed with scissors. No man knew his country,
beyond he was of English speech; and it was clear he came of a good
family and was splendidly educated. He was accomplished too; played the
accordion first-rate; and give him a piece of string or a cork or a pack
of cards, and he could show you tricks equal to any professional. He
could speak, when he chose, fit for a drawing-room; and when he chose he
could blaspheme worse than a Yankee boatswain, and talk smart to sicken
a Kanaka. The way he thought would pay best at the moment, that was
Case's way, and it always seemed to come natural, and like as if he was
born to it. He had the courage of a lion and the cunning of a rat; and
if he's not in hell to-day, there's no such place. I know but one good
point to the man: that he was fond of his wife, and kind to her. She was
a Samoa woman, and dyed her hair red, Samoa style; and when he came to
die (as I have to tell of) they found one strange thing--that he had
made a will, like a Christian, and the widow got the lot: all his, they
said, and all Black Jack's, and the most of Billy Randall's in the
bargain, for it was Case that kept the books. So she went off home in
the schooner _Manu'a_, and does the lady to this day in her own place.

But of all this on that first morning I knew no more than a fly. Case
used me like a gentleman and like a friend, made me welcome to Falesa,
and put his services at my disposal, which was the more helpful from my
ignorance of the native. All the better part of the day we sat drinking
better acquaintance in the cabin, and I never heard a man talk more to
the point. There was no smarter trader, and none dodgier, in the
islands. I thought Falesa seemed to be the right