I sat on the wall, and looked thoughtfully at the marble slab.
“'Tis twelve years since, Teveiva.”
“Aye, since last Christmas Day. And every year his mother sends a letter and asks, 'Is my boy's grave well kept?' and I write and say, 'It is well tended. One day in every week the women and girls come and weed the path, and see that the plants thrive. This have we always done since thou sent the marble slab.' She sends her letters to the English missionary at Papeite, and he sends mine to her in far away Beretania (Britain).”
“Poor fellow,” I thought; “it was just such a day as this—hot and calm—when we laid him here under the palms.”
On that day, twelve years before, the Asia lay becalmed off the island, and the skipper lowered his boat and came on shore to buy some fresh provisions. He was a cheery old fellow, with snow-white hair, and was brimming over with good spirits, for the Asia had had extraordinary good luck.
“Over a thousand barrels of sparm oil under hatches already, and the Asia not out nine months,” he said to me, “and we haven't lost a boat, nor any whale we fastened to yet. And this boy here,” and he turned and clapped his hand on the shoulder of a young, handsome and stalwart youth, who had come with him, “is my boat-steerer, Walter Tallis, and the dandiest lad with an iron that ever stood up in a boat's bow. Forty-two years have I been fishin', and until Walter here shipped on the old Asia, thought that the Almighty never made a good boat-steerer or boat-header outer eny one but a Yankee or a Portugee—or maybe a Walker Injun. But Walter, though he is a Britisher, was born fer whale-killin'—and thet's a fact.”
I shook hands with the young man, who laughed as he said:—
“Captain Allen is always buttering me up. But there are as good, and better men than me with an iron on board the Asia. But I certainly have had wonderful luck—for a Britisher,” and he smiled slyly at his captain.
Suddenly, we were chatting and smoking on the verandah, there came a thrilling cry from the crew of the whaleboat, lying on the beach fifty yards away.