Had we any matches?
To our own astonishment the questions were fired at us in English, and, what was more, English of a strangely familiar pattern. It is a quaint thing to hear one's own tongue fluently bandied amongst a brown-skinned people on an isolated speck of earth in mid-Pacific. But there was no opportunity of solving the riddle just then.
The Leaning Palms
"Let go!"
"She's set!"
"Lower the peak!"
"Lower the main!"
The dream ship had come to anchor on the north-west side of the reef, well sheltered from the almost eternal southeast trades of these latitudes, and the pilot, a six-foot figure of bronze sketchily attired in a converted flour sack, was addressing us with a courtesy as unusual as it was refreshing.
