"'Why, the girls down at Rimitara and Rurutu will just make love to you in a body. Red hair's the making of a man in thim parts.'
"Upon this I signed articles for six months in the schooner, and next day we sailed for a place called Bora-bora in the north-west. We didn't stay there long, but got under weigh for Rurutu next day. We weren't hardly clear of Bora-bora when we sights a brigantine away to windward and bearing down on us before the wind. As soon as she got close enough, she signalled that she wanted to send a boat aboard, so we hove to and waited.
"Our skipper had a look at the man who was steering the boat, whin he turns as pale as a sheet, and says he to the mate, 'It's that devil Hayston! and that's the brigantine he and Captain Ben Peese ran away with from Panama.'
"However, up alongside came the boat, and as fine a looking man as ever I set eyes on steps aboord amongst us.
"'How do ye do, Captain?' says he. 'Where from and whither bound?'
"The skipper was in a blue funk, I could see, for this Bully Hayston had a terrible bad name, so he answers him quite polite and civil.
"'Can you spare me half a coil of two-inch Manilla?' asks the stranger, 'and I'll pay you your own price?'
"The skipper got him the rope, the strange captain pays for it, and they goes below for a glass of grog. In half an hour, up on deck they comes again, our skipper half-seas over and laughing fit to kill himself.
"'By George!' says he, 'you're the drollest card I ever came across. D—n me! if I wouldn't like to take a trip with you myself!' and with that he struggles to the skylight and falls in a heap across it.
"'Who's the mate of this schooner?' sings out Hayston, in such a changed voice that it made me jump.