Captain Tom continued to approach with the same business-like alacrity; no change was to be perceived in his bearded face as he came swinging up the plank: he did not even turn his eyes on the performer.
'We twa hae paidled in the burn Frae morning tide till dine,' went the song.
Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which he laid on the house roof, and then turning suddenly to the strangers:
'Here, you!' he bellowed, 'be off out of that!'
The clerk and Herrick stood not on the order of their going, but fled incontinently by the plank. The performer, on the other hand, flung down the instrument and rose to his full height slowly.
'What's that you say?' he said. 'I've half a mind to give you a lesson in civility.'
'You set up any more of your gab to me,' returned the Scotsman, 'and I'll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I've heard tell of the three of ye. Ye're not long for here, I can tell ye that.
The Government has their eyes upon ye. They make short work of damned beachcombers, I'll say that for the French.'
'You wait till I catch you off your ship!' cried the captain: and then, turning to the crew, 'Good-bye, you fellows!' he said.
'You're gentlemen, anyway! The worst nigger among you would look better upon a quarter-deck than that filthy Scotchman.'
Captain Tom scorned to reply; he watched with a hard smile the departure of his guests; and as soon as the last foot was off the plank; turned to the hands to work cargo.
The beachcombers beat their inglorious retreat along the shore; Herrick first, his face dark with blood, his knees trembling under him with the hysteria of rage. Presently, under the same purao where they had shivered the night before, he cast himself down, and groaned aloud, and ground his face into the sand.
'Don't speak to me, don't speak to me. I can't stand it,' broke from him.
The other two stood over him perplexed.
'Wot can't he stand now?' said the clerk. ''Asn't he 'ad a meal? I'M lickin' my lips.'
Herrick reared up his wild eyes and burning face. 'I can't beg!' he screamed, and again threw himself prone.
'This thing's got to come to an end,' said the captain with an intake of the breath.
'Looks like signs of an end, don't it?' sneered the clerk.
'He's not so far from it, and don't you deceive yourself,' replied the captain. 'Well,' he added in a livelier voice, 'you fellows hang on here, and I'll go and interview my representative.'
Whereupon he turned on his heel, and set off at a swinging sailor's walk towards Papeete.
It was some half hour later when he returned. The clerk was dozing with his back against the tree: Herrick still lay where he had flung himself; nothing showed whether he slept or waked.
'See, boys!' cried the captain, with that artificial heartiness of his which was at times so painful, 'here's a new idea.' And he produced note paper, stamped envelopes, and pencils, three of each. 'We can all write home by the mail brigantine; the consul says I can come over to his place and ink up the addresses.'
'Well, that's a start, too,' said the clerk. 'I never thought of that.'
'It was that yarning last night about going home that put me up to it,' said the captain.
'Well, 'and over,' said the clerk. 'I'll 'ave a shy,' and he retired a little distance to the shade of a canoe.
The others remained under the purao. Now they would write a word or two, now scribble it out; now they would sit biting at the pencil end and staring seaward; now their eyes would rest on the clerk, where he sat propped on the canoe, leering and coughing, his pencil racing glibly on the paper.
'I can't do it,' said Herrick suddenly. 'I haven't got the heart.'
'See here,' said the captain, speaking with unwonted gravity;
'it may be hard to write, and to write lies at that; and God knows it is; but it's the square thing. It don't cost anything to say you're well and happy, and sorry you can't make a remittance this mail; and if you don't, I'll tell you what I think it is--I think it's about the high-water mark of being a brute beast.'
'It's easy to talk,' said Herrick. 'You don't seem to have written much yourself, I notice.'
'What do you bring in me for?' broke from the captain. His voice was indeed scarce raised above a whisper, but emotion clanged in it. 'What do you know about me? If you had commanded the finest barque that ever sailed from Portland; if you had been drunk in your berth when she struck the breakers in Fourteen Island Group, and hadn't had the wit to stay there and drown, but came on deck, and given drunken orders, and lost six lives--I could understand your talking then! There,' he said more quietly, 'that's my yarn, and now you know it. It's a pretty one for the father of a family. Five men and a woman murdered. Yes, there was a woman on board, and hadn't no business to be either. Guess I sent her to Hell, if there is such a place. I never dared go home again; and the wife and the little ones went to England to her father's place. I don't know what's come to them,' he added, with a bitter shrug.
'Thank you, captain,' said Herrick. 'I never liked you better.'
They shook hands, short and hard, with eyes averted, tenderness swelling in their bosoms.
'Now, boys! to work again at lying!' said the captain.
'I'll give my father up,' returned Herrick with a writhen smile.
'I'll try my sweetheart instead for a change of evils.'
And here is what he wrote:
