“’Is old woman is a barefoot girl among the cannibals,” Lying Bill said to me later. “’E ’as given a ’ole army of ostriches to fortune, ’e ’as.”

One of Captain Pincher’s own sons was assistant to the engineer, Ducat, and helped in the cargo work.  The lad lived forward with the crew, so that we saw nothing of him socially, and his father never spoke to him save to give an order or a reprimand.  Native mothers mourn often the lack of fatherly affection in their white mates.  Illegitimate children are held cheap by the whites.

[Illustration:  Lieutenant L’Hermier des Plantes, Governor of the Marquesas Islands]

[Illustration:  Entrance to a Marquesan bay]

For two days at sea after leaving Papeite we did not see the sun.  This was the rainy and hot season, a time of calms and hurricanes, of sudden squalls and maddening quietudes, when all signs fail and the sailor must stand by for the whims of the wind if he would save himself and his ship.  For hours we raced along at seven or eight knots, with a strong breeze on the quarter and the seas ruffling about our prow.  For still longer hours we pushed through a windless calm by motor power.  Showers fell incessantly.

We lived in pajamas, barefooted, unshaven and unwashed.  Fresh water was limited, as it would be impossible to replenish our casks for many weeks.  McHenry said it was not difficult to accustom one’s self to lack of water, both externally and internally.

There was a demijohn of strong Tahitian rum always on tap in the cabin.  Here we sat to eat and remained to drink and read and smoke.  There was Bordeaux wine at luncheon and dinner, Martinique and Tahitian rum and absinthe between meals.  The ship’s bell was struck by the steersman every half hour, and McHenry made it the knell of an ounce.

Captain Pincher took a jorum every hour or two and retired to his berth and novels, leaving the navigation of the Morning Star to the under-officers.  Ducat, the third officer, a Breton, joined us at meals.  He was a decent, clever fellow in his late twenties, ambitious and clear-headed, but youthfully impressed by McHenry’s self-proclaimed wickedness.

One night after dinner he and McHenry were bantering each other after a few drinks of rum.  McHenry said, “Say, how’s your kanaka woman?”

Ducat’s fingers tightened on his glass.  Then, speaking English and very precisely, he asked, “Do you mean my wife?”

“I mean your old woman.  What’s this wife business?”

“She is my wife, and we have two children.”

McHenry grinned.  “I know all that.  Didn’t I know her before you?  She was mine first.”

Ducat got up.  We all got up.  The air became tense, and in the silence there seemed no motion of ship or wave.  I said to myself, “This is murder.”

Ducat, very pale, an inscrutable look on his face, his black eyes narrowed, said quietly, “Monsieur, do you mean that?”