fella white marster of the _Arangi_ would undoubtedly be her destination
when she had sufficiently fattened. His designs on her had been
transparent from the first, when he had tried to feed her up. And she
had outwitted him by resolutely eating no more than would barely keep her
alive.

As a result, she, who had lived in the bush all her days and never so
much as set foot in a canoe, rocked and rolled unendingly over the broad
ocean in a perpetual nightmare of fear. In the beche-de-mer that was
current among the blacks of a thousand islands and ten thousand dialects,
the _Arangi's_ procession of passengers assured her of her fate. "My
word, you fella Mary," one would say to her, "short time little bit that
big fella white marster kai-kai along you." Or, another: "Big fella
white marster kai-kai along you, my word, belly belong him walk about too
much."

Kai-kai was the beche-de-mer for "eat." Even Jerry knew that. "Eat" did
not obtain in his vocabulary; but kai-kai did, and it meant all and more
than "eat," for it served for both noun and verb.

But the girl never replied to the jeering of the blacks. For that
matter, she never spoke at all, not even to Captain Van Horn, who did not
so much as know her name.

It was late afternoon, after discovering the girl in the lazarette, when
Jerry again came on deck. Scarcely had Skipper, who had carried him up
the steep ladder, dropped him on deck than Jerry made a new
discovery--land. He did not see it, but he smelled it. His nose went up
in the air and quested to windward along the wind that brought the
message, and he read the air with his nose as a man might read a