Next morning the three were quite ordinary-looking. They were shorn
and shaved and scrubbed, and rigged out in Schlyter's white drill
trousers and coats. They had rooms under mine in the animal-yard. They
were to await the first steamship for the United States, to which
country they would be sent as shipwrecked mariners by the American
consulate. This vessel would not arrive for some weeks. The captain
sat outside his door on the balcony, and expanded his log into a story
of his experiences. He had determined to turn author, and to recoup
his losses as much as possible by the sale of his manuscript. With
a stumpy pencil in hand, he scratched his head, pursed his mouth,
and wrote slowly. He would not confide in me. He said he had had
sufferings enough to make money out of them, and would talk only to
magazine editors.

"There's Easter Island," he told me. "Those curiosities there are
worth writing about, too. I've put down a hundred sheets already. I'm
sorry, but I can't talk to any one. I'm going to take the boat with
me, and exhibit it in a museum and speak a piece."

He was serious about his silence, and as my inquisitiveness was now
beyond restraint, I tried the sailors. They would have no log, but
their memories might be good.

Alex Simoneau, being of French descent, and speaking the Gallic
tongue, was not to be found at the Tiare. He was at the Paris, or
other cafe, surrounded by gaping Frenchmen, who pressed upon him
Pernoud, rum, and the delicate wines of France. So great was his
absorption in his new friends, and so unbounded their hospitality,
that M. Lontane laid him by the heels to rest him. Simoneau was wiry,