“There’s a boat coming now,” said I.  “She’s right in the pass; looks to be a sixteen-foot whale; two white men in the stern sheets.”

“That’s the boat that drowned Whistling Jimmie!” cried the Captain; “let’s see the glass.  Yes, that’s Case, sure enough, and the darkie.  They’ve got a gallows bad reputation, but you know what a place the beach is for talking.  My belief, that Whistling Jimmie was the worst of the trouble; and he’s gone to glory, you see.  What’ll you bet they ain’t after gin?  Lay you five to two they take six cases.”

When these two traders came aboard I was pleased with the looks of them at once, or, rather, with the looks of both, and the speech of one.  I was sick for white neighbours after my four years at 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.