bales of Manchester goods and cheap German cutlery filled up her lower hold. I noticed particularly how beautifully clean below she was, all newly lime-washed; on deck, although alongside the wharf, she was as clean as the proverbial new pin.
To a sailor there is something fascinating about the lines of a pretty vessel, and the little schooner was as neat a model, for a trader, as one could wish to see.
Seated aft on the cabin top a man was smoking—a dark-haired, swarthy man—powerfully built, with sleeves rolled up over a pair of muscular arms clasped round his left knee, which was drawn up almost under his chin. The other leg hung down over the cabin top, and I could not see it, as I was on the port side and he sat on the starboard. I knew be wasn't the mate (mates don't have time to loll around and smoke), so I supposed he was the captain.
A fringe of black hair around his face made him pretty ugly, and he had little black, beady eyes that seemed to glitter, and didn't add to his beauty. It was the captain; I learned afterwards that his name was Dane—Paul Dane. He had the reputation of being one of the smartest traders in the South Seas—which is saying a good deal for his capacities, both in business and by way of seamanship.
There was no steam there amongst the islands; Burns, Philp & Co. had not swallowed the trade, and good pickings were to be got by smart men who could keep their vessels off the coral reefs and knew their way about. Admiralty charts in those days weren't of any use at all amongst the islands. The best paying trade, in fact the chief one, was "blackbirding." Now blackbirding in the South Seas isn't the innocent amusement of our school days. In plain English it means stealing natives from the Islands and "contracting" them for labor.
The government has stopped it all now, but in those times the trade had full swing, and Paul Dane was the
