THE WRECKER

by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE.

IN THE MARQUESAS.

THE YARN.

CHAPTER I  A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION

CHAPTER II  ROUSSILLON WINE

CHAPTER III  TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON

CHAPTER IV  IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE

CHAPTER V  IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS

CHAPTER VI  IN WHICH I GO WEST

CHAPTER VII  IRONS IN THE FIRE

CHAPTER VIII  FACES ON THE CITY FRONT

CHAPTER IX  THE WRECK OF THE "FLYING SCUD.

CHAPTER X  IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH

CHAPTER XI  IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS

CHAPTER XII  THE "NORAH CREINA.

CHAPTER XIII  THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK

CHAPTER XIV  THE CABIN OF THE "FLYING SCUD"

CHAPTER XV  THE CARGO OF THE "FLYING SCUD"

CHAPTER XVI  IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIS

CHAPTER XVII  LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR

CHAPTER XVIII  CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS

CHAPTER XIX  TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER

CHAPTER XX  STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW

CHAPTER XXI  FACE TO FACE

CHAPTER XXII  THE REMITTANCE MAN

CHAPTER XXIII     THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS"

CHAPTER XXIV  A HARD BARGAIN

CHAPTER XXV  A BAD BARGAIN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE.

IN THE MARQUESAS.

It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in Tai-o-hae, the French capital and port of entry of the Marquesas Islands. The trades blew strong and squally; the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the fifty-ton schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at her moorings under Prison Hill. The clouds hung low and black on the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains; rain had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of the mountain was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.

In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name. The rain had not refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the dwellers of Tai-o-hae: away at one end, indeed, the commandant was directing some changes in the residency garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being all convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey. All other folks slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, 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 board houses looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms and green jungle of puraos, no moving figure could be seen. Only, at the end of the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John Hart, there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the famous tattooed white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.

His eyes were open, staring down