“‘She ain’t praying,’ he pants, ducking down again quick.  ’She’s a-picking up stones.’

“And so she was.  Julius said he thought sure she’d cave in the Emily’s ribs afore she got through with her broadsides.  The rocks flew like hail.  Everybody got their share, but Cap’n George got a big one in the middle of the back.  That took his breath so all the way he could express his feelings was to reach out and give his new passenger half a dozen kicks.  But just as soon as he could he spoke, all right enough.

“‘You mis’rable four-eyed shrimp!’ he says. ’’Twould serve you right if I ’ove to and made you swim back to ’er.  Blow me if I don’t believe I will!’

“‘Aw, don’t, Cap’n; please don’t!’ begs the feller.  ’I’ll be awful grateful to you if you won’t.  And I’ll make it right with you, too.  I’ve got a good thing in that bag of mine.  Yes, sir!  A beautiful good thing.’

“‘Oh, well,’ says the skipper, bracing up and smiling sweet as he could for the ache in his back.  ’I’ll ’elp you out.  You trust your Uncle George.  Not on account of what you’re going to give me, you understand,’ says he.  ’It would be a pity if that was the reason for ‘elpin’ a feller creat—­ Sparrow, if you touch that bag I’ll break your blooming ’ead.  ’Ere! you ’and it to me.  I’ll take care of it for the gentleman.’

“All the rest of that day the Cap’n couldn’t do enough for the passenger.  Give him a big dinner that took Teunis two hours to cook, and let him use his own pet pipe with the last of Jule’s tobacco in it, and all that.  And that evening in the cabin, Rosy told his story.  Seems he come from Bombay originally, where he was born an innocent and trained to be a photographer.  This was in the days when these hand cameras wa’n’t so common as they be now, and Rosy—­his full name was Clarence Rosebury, and he looked it—­had a fine one.  Also he had some plates and photograph paper and a jug of ‘developer’ and bottles of stuff to make more, wrapped up in an old overcoat and packed away in the carpetbag.  He had landed in the Fijis first-off and had drifted over to Hello Island, taking pictures of places and natives and so on, intending to use ’em in a course of lectures he was going to deliver when he got back home.  He boarded with the Kanaka lady at Hello till his money give out, and then he married her to save board.  He wouldn’t talk about his married life—­just shivered instead.

“‘But w’at about this good thing you was mentioning, Mr. Rosebury?’ asks Cap’n George, polite, but staring hard at the bag.  Jule and the cook was in the cabin likewise.  The skipper would have liked to keep ’em out, but they being two to one, he couldn’t.

“‘That’s it,’ answers Rosy, cheerful.

“‘W’at’s it?’