I MISS AN OPPORTUNITY.

183

"Here are the papers," purred the cat-like Doctor, in his

new character of Government Agent.

"You are not overcrowded, at all events. Two years? "Yes, sir, they are to be returned in two years."

"Are these their marks?"

"These are their marks, sir."

I am sure my mark was not there, for I could have written my name just as well as either the Captain or his Government Agent. Should I speak out or be silent? was the question I was feverishly discussing.

"I'll step below, if you please."

My opportunity was passing.

"Certainly; plenty of light and air, sir, Poor, dear creatures! I hate to see them crowded and choked up as they are on some of these kidnapping craft. That business ought to be put a stop to. It's a disgrace to the British flag. By-the-way, sir, are you acquainted with the saintly Bishop Curwen? A splendid man, that !”

"Yes; I have complaints from him and from some of his islands of gross cases of kidnapping and murder, and we have orders to overhaul every vessel we meet."

"We also have heard of these sad cases, so inhuman. Step this way, sir."

My golden opportunity was gone. What a young coward I was! But I can tell you the kind of treatment I had lately met with breaks a fellow's spirit and makes him shaky all over. I rattled my irons against the door, and cried out as loud as I could: "They are telling lies!" But it was just too late. I could hear the Doctor say something about a poor maniac lad, and then the party, which had stopped at the noise I had made, went on again and shut the outer doors behind them.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

NOT HAPPY ISLAND.

I was not released from my confinement for, I should say, a couple of hours afterwards; and by that time the man-of-war had steamed away. How perfectly the cunning Doctor had imposed upon the young officer!

If we blame the officer, we blame him for not thinking civilized white men were capable of such atrocities.

There were the Doctor and Darken walking up and down amidships, as they often did, because the poop was very short. I moved over near them, that I might hear their conversation and gain a little more knowledge as to what was to become of us. But to all appearances Taorémbé and I were as deeply absorbed in our conversation as were Darken and the Doctor in theirs.

"Doctor," said Darken, as they turned on their heels forward and walked aft, "you deserve to be made a D.D., blest if you don't."

"And you, Darken, were certainly cut out for an Archbishop -but who gets their rights in this sinful world?"

"What a green one he was, too! Drank it all down like mother's milk. I'll be hanged if I thought we should have got clear so easy. Not overcrowded, eh! I should rather think not."

"There's only one thing, Darken, which annoys me. I shall regret it to the end of my life—it would have made the programme perfect and I should have died happy."

"What was that, Doctor,"

"Why, for you to have put on your toggery and sung him a hymn."

"I thought of that myself-but ten to one if he'd have appreciated it—he didn't look musical.”

OFF NEW CALEDONIA.

185

"Well, Darken, we're SAFE! and that's the main point. Safe Darken, safe!"

"Not while the skipper rouses the watch with his cries of Murder !"

Oh, he'll forget all about it when he gets ashore. You would have been the man, Darken, but the fates were not propitious. How does the Island bear to-day? I'm getting rather home-sick myself. You must whistle, Darken; whistle for a breeze."

"New Caledonia bore one point to windward this morning at eight bells," answered the Mate. He then stepped up to the compass and back again, saying: "She's come up half a point. Another week-if we have any wind."

"Another week," cried the Doctor, "Why don't you say Eternity at once?"

Without waiting for an answer to this question he went into the cabin apparently disgusted, while Darken gave an order to square the yards.

As I kept no record of the time, I cannot say exactly, but it must have been about a week afterwards that preparations were made for going into port. We had to help in getting up chain and in the general re-scrubbing, re-painting, and re-fitting that began, and which helped to relieve the deadness and the awe that still hung about the bloodstained ship.

It was one morning that we began to fall in with the land, and we spent the whole day tacking and working through narrow channels and among islets. Some were sand islets— so like Turtle Island, it made me almost cry to look at them. Should I ever see Pombuana again, I wondered? What kind of a place would this turn out to be?

To Taorémbé's discontent and anger I always answered, what I must confess I did not always quite feel, that God would yet bring it out all right, and that the worst of these men could do nothing without His will. I was beginning like the Prodigal to value what I had despised and lost.

It was just getting dark when we cast anchor in a large and pretty bay at the foot of high red hills-almost mountains, on the slopes of which, and on the flat, were scattered about the whitest houses I had ever seen. There was a large Man-of-War lying not far off, but there was light enough for me to see that her flag was not the English flag. A boat soon came alongside, and three men came up on board. One spoke English; the other two spoke what I now know to have been French.

The Doctor immediataly began to spout forth a mixture of both in about equal proportions-murdering the French with as much satisfaction as if it had been Black. The result of the conversation was, first the disappearance of all into the cabin, and secondly, a loud and repeated clinking of glasses, laughter, and merriment.

We shivered in the damp cold evening air, feeling most miserable, and utterly in the dark as to what would happen to us from one moment to another.

Nicholson advised us to go below, for we shouldn't go ashore till morning. We followed his advice, and the vessel being quiet and the Captain and the Doctor occupied, we had a firstrate sleep.

Next morning came, however, and with it a full and clear view of the new land whither we had come. There was the largest town I had ever seen, glad with a merry noise of trumpets and drums, which made me laugh to hear it.

After breakfast a boat came off with a red-faced man in it, who, as he came alongside, hailed the Captain :

"Hullo, Will, my boy! so you're back again. I thought you were going home this cruise."

"They've no idea of civilizing blacks in that quarter: don't appreciate our little endeavours. Catch hold of the man-rope, and take care of your precious neck, Mac. How are ye?

How's the market? How's all the Weewees?"

WE ARE DISPOSED OF.

187

"O, the market's pretty good still. What's made you so long? Why, you've only half a cargo !"

"We had to lighten ship. I'll tell you all about it by-andbye. Fell in with a bull-dog. What a nerve the Doctor's got, Mac. It's perfectly amazing.”

"Well, out with your labour, my noble Captain; I've no time to waste. Roads awful heavy, and we're going to have a hurricane."

“Is this the same one you were going to have last time I was here? It strikes me one blow lasts you fellows a long time. I've never been here yet but what they were going to have a hurricane. Never saw such a place Smart's the word and quick's the action, then."

The Doctor had been busy with some very thin-waisted French officials, who had passed the night on board.

He now came after us, and made us all stand in rows, while Mac came round and inspected us. He did me the honour to be favourably impressed by my personal appearance, saying, as he gave me a smart slap on my shoulder: "What's the figure?" "A tenner," was the answer.

Why, that's what I used to sing in the chapel at Happy Island, thought I.

"He's the article for the Boss," said Mac, "and cheap at that."

"How many hands do you want ?" asked the Doctor. "Only a score this time."

So twenty of my fellow "passengers," as they called us when the officials were in hearing-not including Taorémbé, I was sorry to see-were told off. Mac took us all ashore, where two light drays were waiting, into which we were put and driven off; but not before Mac's face, which had been in and out of a white house close by, had become alarmingly redder.

As we went through the town, which seemed to me of prodigious size, we met an army blowing trumpets and beating