From San Francisco he took out with him a colony of busy bees of Americans, with everything necessary to develop the resources of those cannibal islands. They are cannibal islands now no longer. A church stands on the largest, where once dreadful orgies used to take place, that are too revolting even to think of. There is a busy and prosperous little village near the sea, and fields of rice and roots and sugar-cane stretch over the rolling hills far away to the woodlands. The islands are rich too in spices and in gums, as well as some forms of mineral wealth, and ships call many times during the year to buy and barter goods.
The black population is industrious, the white men and their families are well-to-do. Fred is governor, and honest Bunko is his overseer.
But of all professions in the world what should Frank adopt in the end but farming?
I will tell you how it turned out. Señor Sarpinto, after a visit to the little village of Methlin, was so enamoured with the quiet peace and repose that reign around it, and with the simple ways of the fisher population, that he determined to make it his home. He was growing old, he said, and he should like to be near to Toddie. He had plenty of money, he told Eean. What was the good of money if it did not bring happiness? So he set about "building himself happiness"—these are his own words.
First and foremost he found out his old friend, Captain Cawdor, who had retired, and was living in the city of Glasgow.
"My good captain," he said, "I cannot understand why you should like to live among stones and mortar, quite away from the sound of the sea."
"Ah! my friend, I'd fain spend my life, or what remains of it, where I could hear and see the waves; but I am not wealthy enough to do as I please."
"But the rent you pay for this house," said the Señor, "would, I think, get you a charming villa surrounded by pretty gardens, close to the woods, and close to the western ocean."
"When you find such a place, my friend, come and tell me, and I will rejoicingly take it," the captain said, laughing.
Now there was land to be sold at Methlin, and around it, and the Señor quickly became the purchaser, and in six months' time not only did a lovely mansion spring up in the glen behind the village, but a pretty cottage close to the sea.