circles of delight around him at every repetition of that strange low lip-
noise, and paused just outside the circle of lantern light where dusky
forms laboured with landing cargo from the whaleboats and where the
Commissioner's clerk and the _Makambo's_ super-cargo still wrangled over
the bill of lading. When Michael would have gone forward, the man
withstrained him with the same inarticulate, almost inaudible kiss.

For Daughtry did not care to be seen on such dog-stealing enterprises and
was planning how to get on board the steamer unobserved. He edged around
outside the lantern shine and went on along the beach to the native
village. As he had foreseen, all the able-bodied men were down at the
boat-landing working cargo. The grass houses seemed lifeless, but at
last, from one of them, came a challenge in the querulous, high-pitched
tones of age:

"What name?"

"Me walk about plenty too much," he replied in the beche-de-mer English
of the west South Pacific. "Me belong along steamer. Suppose 'm you
take 'm me along canoe, washee-washee, me give 'm you fella boy two stick
tobacco."

"Suppose 'm you give 'm me ten stick, all right along me," came the
reply.

"Me give 'm five stick," the six-quart steward bargained. "Suppose 'm
you no like 'm five stick then you fella boy go to hell close up."

There was a silence.