Before starting to heave down the ship, came the tedious task of discharging over three hundred barrels of oil, and rafting them ashore; then the barque was taken in close under a rocky bluff, which offered excellent facilities to carry out the work in water as calm as a mill pond, and as clear as the purest crystal. The started butt-end was found and repaired, the ship righted again, and preparations made for re-shipping the oil by the morning of the fifth day.
That afternoon Herrendeen visited the mission house, where he found Mrs. Casalle and Solepa busy at work with two or three young native women, making dresses out of some more modestly coloured prints than those she had been able to obtain on the Adventurer, which were of the very brightest hue, being intended only for disposal to the colour-loving natives of the Moluccas, and other islands where the captain usually called to buy provisions during his cruise.
'We'll be ready for sea in another week,' he said, looking at his passenger with undisguised admiration. 'Why, Mrs. Casalle, my officers won't know you again, you look----' He was about to say 'so beautiful,' but stopped himself in time.
'Ten years younger, Captain Herrendeen, I hope you were going to say, but I'll be content if you say five,' she broke in, with a laugh. 'Have you seen Father Serge yet?'
'No, I came to see you first, of course; but here he comes. Where is Tom?'
Mrs. Casalle nodded her pretty head half a dozen times in rapid succession, and threw up her hands in affected indignation.
'Away, of course. He's never here between daylight and dark. If he's not out pig-hunting in the forest, he's away fishing in the middle of the ocean between here and Alofi. He's just deserted me altogether. Is not that so, father?' she said to the old priest, who with another Marist priest as old as himself just then entered the house to greet the captain.
'He is what you call a rambler, a rambler! Oh yes, a great rambler; but he is a good boy, madame, a good boy. Now will you not come with us, so that we may show our friend here all over our mission station?'
Just before supper at the mission house that evening, Tom, brown-faced, dirty, and panting, came staggering up the pebbled path with a turtle on his shoulder.
'We got three,' he said triumphantly, putting the creature down on the verandah,--'and this is only the smallest. Hallo, captain, how are you?'