“Capting, I’ve seed, in my experience o’ life, that there are some constitootions as don’t agree with jokin’; an’ yours is one on ’em.  Now, if you’d take the advice of a plain man, you’d never try it on.  You’re a grave man by natur’, and you’re so bad at a joke that a feller can’t quite tell w’en you’re a-doin’ of it.  See, now!  I do declare I wos as near drivin’ you right over the stern o’ your own boat as could be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your eye in time.”

“Pull away, my lad,” said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face.

There was something in the tone in which that simple command was given, and in the look by which it was accompanied, that effectually quelled John Bumpus in spite of himself.  Violence had no effect on John, because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and in all cases he was willing to try.  But to be put down in this mild way was perplexing.  The words were familiar, the look straightforward and common enough.  He could not understand it at all, and being naturally of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a futile endeavor to analyze his own feelings.  Before he had come to any satisfactory conclusion on the subject, the boat’s keel grated on the white sand of the shore.

Now, while all that we have been describing in the last and present chapters was going on, a very different series of events was taking place on the coral-island; for there, under the pleasant shade of the cocoanut palms, a tall, fair, and handsome youth was walking lightly down the green slopes toward the shore in anticipation of the arrival of the schooner, and a naked, dark-skinned savage was dogging his steps, winding like a hideous snake among the bushes, and apparently seeking an opportunity to launch the short spear he carried in his hand at his unsuspecting victim.

As the youth and the savage descended the mountain-side together, the former frequently paused when an opening in the rich foliage peculiar to these beautiful isles enabled him to obtain a clear view of the magnificent bay and its fringing coral reef, on which the swell of the great Pacific—­so calm and undulating out beyond—­fell in tremendous breakers, with a long, low, solemn roar like distant thunder.  As yet no object broke the surface of the mirror-like bay within the reef.

Each time the youth paused the savage stopped also, and more than once he poised his deadly spear, while his glaring eyeballs shone amid the green foliage like those of a tiger.  Yet upon each occasion he exhibited signs of hesitation, and finally lowered the weapon, and crouched into the underwood.