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.

The Ebb-Tide