The Wrecker

nds. The trades blew strong and squally; the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the fifty-ton schooner of war, that

fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout for violence; and the green

u, the native queen, in her trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian commissary, in his beflagged official residence; the merchants, in their deserted stores; and even the club-servant in the club, his head fallen forward on the bottle-counter, under the map of the world and the cards of navy officers. In the whole length of the single shoreside street, with its scattered

he frontier line of sleep and waking, memory would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown faces and white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief, would arise before his mind and vanish; he would recall old voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn; he would hear again the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would summon up the form of that island pri

d man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed;

nt broke from his domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the harbour master, who was also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up the complement of the war-scho

exchanging guesses as to the nationality and business of the strange vessel, before she had gone about upon

reen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere have found an owner una

d the astute Scots engineer of the gi

, "a yacht! look at her davits

sgow voice. "Look at her red ensi

n. "Bon jour, mon Prince!" he added, as a dark, intelligent native c

sun already visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead, the haunters of the jungle

eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've seen British colours

for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer had been a sound of s

if welcoming a fresh topic. "Wh

ttired in spotless duck, and deliberately dealing with a cigarette. "I may say I know

he?" asked the

rned Havens. "Some tram

by uproarious Kanakas, himself daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation, giving his com

captain received

us, I think," said h

aking hands. "You will find the owner, Mr. Do

ley-way, and descended the

llish, bearded gentleman, who sat writing at the

e alacrity. "I had a half-hope it might be you, when I found your name on the paper

for you seem to have become a

ick is not my flag; it's my partner's. He is not dead, but sleepeth. There he is," he added, p

"A fine bust," said he; "and

" said Dodd. "He runs me

hort of it," added the other, peering

French. You should see how the beach-combers wilt away when they go round them looking for a change of Seaside Library no

at is that?"

lied Dodd. "I began

id the other. "I think, too, you said you

ps. I was born an artist; I never took an interest in anything but art. If I were to pile u

" inquire

ho insures us, and comes down like a wolf on the fold

s all right about th

plied Dodd. "Shall we

y'll be rather expecting you at the club. C'est l'heure de

he was a man of middle age, and well-to-do; arranged his beard and moustaches at one of the Veneti

- a boat of an elegant model, with cu

Loudon. "You know th

eer another man's b

quits," returned Loudon, gett

sure I don't know how you make this pay," he said. "To begin with, she

d to be a business man. My partner appears happy; and the money is

e berth, I suppose?

n; "it seems odd,

rom its activity; the land-breeze came in refreshing draughts; and the club men gathered together for the hour of absinthe. To the commandant himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at billiards - a trader from the next island, honorary member of the club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship - to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of comme

h all, the names of schooners and their captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and news of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and debated. To a stranger, this conversation will at first seem scarcely brilliant; but he will soon catch the tone; and by the time he shall have moved a year or so in the island world, and come across a good number of

e first steps of some career of which he now heard the culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought with him from further south the end of some story which had begun in Tai-o-hae

up on Palmerston Is

ers?" inquired on

es!" returned Loudo

ve voice to the general sentiment by remarking, "Talk of good business! I know n

!" said the Glasgow man. "Nobody makes

another. "There's a

he fourth year," remarked a third; "skim the whole lagoon on th

cold is good,"

gan to break up as soon as she touched. Lloyd's agent had her sold inside an hour; and before dark, when she went to pieces in earnest, the man that bought her had fe

recks sometimes," said the G

ere's deuced little in

he other. "What I want is a secret; get hold of a

not thought to be the t

Glasgow, stoutly. "The only devil of it is, a fellow can never find

some dime-novel, I supp

g Aurora Floyd,"

rs! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets you snickering. I tell y

n of peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular," said he, "

kket?" inquired the inar

," returned Loudon, "but not the gold-digging

ed some one, "did you

did," sa

re money

ay," respo

bought a wreck?

r," said

an out?" pursue

eplied Loudon. "I don't know, on the whole,

eak up?" as

hat broke down," says Loud

blackmail?" in

e me sitting here

busi

u see," returned the stranger.

ret?" asked th

the State

other man

d, but I guess he could buy

g, then? Couldn't y

I had him cornered

t th

d bottom up. I became

euce y

mean?" asked Dodd pleasantly. "Well, no

, Loudon," said Havens, "let's b

ouse, sat down with them in the cool trellised room, where the wine shone on the lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic food - the raw fish, the breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast pig served with the inimitable miti, and that king of delicacies, palm-tree salad; seen and heard by fits and starts, now peering round the corner of the door, now railing within against invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady in a sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family, and too imperious to be less; and then if s

the club wa

lk so much nonsense,

the air, so I talked for talking," returned

- "that about the opium and the wreck, and the

word of it,"

been seeing life,"

his friend; "if you think you

ot as he told it to his friend, but as