owe him. Well, I have done my best and have failed, from no fault of my own; but remember that if ever you hear of a family of the name of Simcoe, I want you to make inquiries about them, and to give me full particulars concerning them."

But no news ever reached the General on this head, and it was a frequent cause of lamentation to him, when he finally settled in town, that although he had again advertised he had heard nothing whatever of the family of which he was in search.

CHAPTER II.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

An island in the Pacific. The sun was shining down from a cloudless sky, the sea was breaking on the white beach, there was just sufficient breeze to move the leaves of the cocoanut trees that formed a dark band behind the sands. A small brig of about a hundred tons' burden lay anchored a short distance from the shore. The paint was off in many places, and everywhere blistered by the sun. Her sails hung loosely in the gaskets, and the slackness of her ropes and her general air of untidiness alike showed the absence of any sort of discipline on board.

In front of a rough shanty, built just within the line of shade of the cocoanuts, sat three men. Two drunken sailors lay asleep some fifty yards away. On the stump of a tree in front of the bench on which the three men were sitting were placed several black bottles and three tin pannikins, while two gourds filled with water and covered with broad banana leaves stood erect in holes dug in the sand.

"I tell you what it is, Atkins, your men are carrying it on too far. Bill here, and I, were good friends with the natives; the chief gave us wives, and we got on well enough with them. What with the cocoanuts, which are free to us all, and the patches of ground to cultivate, we had all we wanted, and with the store of beads and bright cotton we brought here with us we paid the natives to fish for pearls for us, and have collected enough copra to trade for rum and whatever else we want. You have got all our copra on board, and a good stock of native trumperies, and I should recommend you to be off, both for your own sake and ours. Your men have been more or less drunk ever since they came here. I don't mind a drinking bout myself now and again, but it does not do to keep it up. However, it would be no odds to us whether your men were drunk all the time or not if they would but get drunk on board, but they will bring the liquor on shore, and then they get quarrelsome, use their fists on the natives, and meddle with the women. Now, these fellows are quiet and gentle enough if they are left alone and treated fairly, but I don't blame them for getting riled up when they are ill-treated, and I tell you they are riled up pretty badly now. My woman has spoken to me more than once, and from what she says there is likely to be trouble, not only for you but for us."

"Well, Sim," the man that he was addressing said, "there is reason enough in what you say. I don't care myself a snap for these black fellows; a couple of musket-shots would send them all flying. But, you see, though I am skipper, the men all have shares and do pretty much as they like. At present they like to stay here, and I suppose they will stay here till they are tired of it."

"Well, Atkins, if I were in your place I should very soon make a change, and if you like, Bill and I will help you. You have got six men; well, if you shot three of them the other three would think better of it; and if they didn't I would settle them too."

"It is all very well talking like that, Sim. How could I sail the brig without hands? If I only kept three of them I should be very short-handed, and if I ever did manage to get to port they would lay a complaint against me for shooting the others. It is all very well for you to talk; you have lived here long enough to know that one can only get the very worst class of fellows to sail with one in craft like this and for this sort of trade. It pays well if one gets back safely, but what with the risk of being cast ashore or being killed by the natives, who are savage enough in some of the islands, it stands to reason that a man who can get a berth in any other sort of craft won't sail with us. But it is just the sort of life to suit chaps like these; it means easy work, plenty of loafing about, and if things turn out well a good lump of money at the end of the voyage. However, they ought to have had enough of it this job; the rum is nearly gone, and if you will come off to-morrow I will let you have what remains, though if they are sober I doubt if they will let you take it away."

"We will risk that," the third man said. "We are not nice about using our pistols, if you are. I was saying to Simcoe here, things are going a lot too far. Enough mischief has been done already, and I am by no means sure that when you have gone they won't make it hot for us. We are very comfortable here, and we are not doing badly, and I don't care about being turned out of it."

"The pearl fishing is turning out well?" Atkins asked quietly.

"It might be worse and it might be better. Anyhow, we are content to remain here for a bit.

"I don't like it, Jack," he said, as the skipper, having in vain tried to rouse the two drunken men, rowed himself off to the brig. "My woman told me this morning that there had been a big talk among the natives, and that though they did not tell her anything, she thought that they had made up their minds to wipe the whites out altogether. They said that if we hadn't been here, the brig would not have come; which is like enough, for Atkins only put in because he was an old chum of ours, and thought that we should have got copra enough to make it worth his while to come round. Well, if the niggers only wiped out the crew, and burned the ship, I should say nothing against it, as long as they let Atkins alone. He has stood by me in more than one rough-and-tumble business, and I am bound to stand by him. But there aint no discrimination among the niggers. Besides, I am not saying but that he has been pretty rough with them himself.

"It makes all the difference whether you settle down and go in for making a pile, or if you only stop to water and take in fruit; we agreed as to that when we landed here. When we stopped here before and found them friendly and pleasant, and we says to each other, 'If we can but get on smooth with them and set them fishing for us we might make a good thing out of it.' You see, we had bought some oysters one of them brought up after a dive, and had found two or three pearls in them.

"Well, we have been here nine months, and I don't say I am not getting tired of it; but it is worth stopping for. You know we reckoned last week that the pearls we have got ought to be worth two or three thousand pounds, and we agreed that we would stay here till we have two bags the size of the one we have got; but unless Atkins gets those fellows off, I doubt if we shan't have to go before that. There is no reasoning with these niggers; if they had any sense they would see that we can't help these things."

"Perhaps what the women tell us is untrue," the other suggested.

"Don't you think that," Simcoe said; "these black women are always true to their white men when they are decently treated. Besides, none of the natives have been near us to-day. That, of course, might be because they are afraid of these chaps; but from this shanty we can see the canoes, and not one has gone out to-day. Who is to blame them, when one of their chiefs was shot yesterday without a shadow of excuse? I don't say that I think so much of a nigger's life one way or another; and having been in some stiff fights together, as you know, I