at my shoulder, watching while I slept, nursing me through fever
and wounds, aye, and receiving wounds in fighting for me. He
signed on the same ships with me, and together we ranged the
Pacific from Hawaii to Sydney Head and from Torres Strait to the
Galapagos. We blackbirded from the New hebrides and the Line
Islands over to the westward, clear through the Louisiades, New
Britain, New Ireland, and New Hanover. We were wrecked three
times--in the Gilberts, in the Santa Cruz group, and in the
Fijis. And we traded and salved wherever a dollar promised in the
way of pearl and pearl shell, copra, beche de mer, hawkbill
turtle shell, and stranded wrecks.

It began in Papeete, immediately after his announcement that he
was going with me over all the sea and the islands in the midst
thereof. There was a club in those days in Papeete, where the
pearlers, traders, captains, and South Sea adventurers
foregathered. The play ran high and the drink ran high, and I am
very much afraid that I kept later hours than were becoming or
proper. No matter what the hour was when I left the club, there
was Otoo waiting to see me safely home. At first I smiled. Next I
chided him. Then I told him flatly I stood in need of no
wet-nursing. After that I did not see him when I came out of the
club. Quite by accident, a week or so later, I discovered that he
still saw me home, lurking across the street among the shadows of
the mango trees. What could I do? I know what I did do.
Insensibly I began to keep better hours. On wet and stormy
nights, in the thick of the folly and the fun, the thought would
come to me of Otoo keeping his dreary vigil under the dripping
mangoes. Truly, he made me a better man.