“Where are you from?” asked the captain, putting the question directly to the young man.
“I’m an American, born in New England, and am seventeen years old, and it is a long time since I have seen my home.”
“How came you in this part of the world?”
“Why not here as well as anywhere else?” asked Fred Sanders, in reply. “I left home when I was only ten years of age, and have knocked about the world ever since.”
“But you are now among the Paumotu Islands.”
“Where I have been for a good while. Some time, perhaps, I will give you the whole history, but it is too long to tell now.”
It was apparent, from the manner of the boy, that he wished to conceal some facts of his previous life, and neither the captain nor mate pressed him––for, in truth, it was of no special interest to them, their all-absorbing subject of mental anxiety being as to how they were to get away from the hated place.
“Where are you directly from?” asked Mr. Storms.
“From an island, the name of which I have never heard in English, though its native name is something like Wauparmur.”