handed to the strangers on the verandah.

These were Francois, his wife, and their child. About eight a.m.,
in the midst of the lagoon, their cutter had capsized in jibbing.
They got her righted, and though she was still full of water put
the child on board. The mainsail had been carried away, but the
jib still drew her sluggishly along, and Francois and the woman
swam astern and worked the rudder with their hands. The cold was
cruel; the fatigue, as time went on, became excessive; and in that
preserve of sharks, fear hunted them. Again and again, Francois,
the half-breed, would have desisted and gone down; but the woman,
whole blood of an amphibious race, still supported him with
cheerful words. I am reminded of a woman of Hawaii who swam with
her husband, I dare not say how many miles, in a high sea, and came
ashore at last with his dead body in her arms. It was about five
in the evening, after nine hours' swimming, that Francois and his
wife reached land at Rotoava. The gallant fight was won, and
instantly the more childish side of native character appears. They
had supped, and told and retold their story, dripping as they came;
the flesh of the woman, whom Mrs. Stevenson helped to shift, was
cold as stone; and Francois, having changed to a dry cotton shirt
and trousers, passed the remainder of the evening on my floor and
between open doorways, in a thorough draught. Yet Francois, the
son of a French father, speaks excellent French himself and seems
intelligent.

It was our first idea that the catechist, true to his evangelical
vocation, was clothing the naked from his superfluity. Then it
came out that Francois was but dealing with his own. The clothes
were his, so was the chest, so was the house. Francois was in fact