Page:Rolf Boldrewood - A Modern Buccaneer.djvu/35

 "Right you are. Come to the Lick house at ten o'clock. Say, my pious friend, what would our good Father Damien think if I told him that pretty story about the six Solomon Island people you picked up at sea, and sold to a sugar planter?"

The trader's visage turned green, as with a deprecating gesture towards me he seemed to implore Hayston's silence.

"Ha! ha! don't get scared. Business matters, my lad," he said, turning to me his merry blue eyes, and patting me on the back. "Where are you staying here?"

I told him. Then as we were rising to go, speaking to me, and looking Slocum in the face, he said, "Don't have any truck with Master Slocum, he'll skin you of every dollar you've got, and like as not turn you adrift at some place you can't get away from. Isn't that so, my saintly friend?"

Slocum flinched like a whipped hound, but said nothing. Then, shaking hands with me, and saying if ever I came to the Pacific and dropped across him or Captain Ben Peese I should meet a hearty welcome, he strode out, with the shambling figure of the down-easter under his lee.

That was the last I saw of the two captains for many a long day, for a few days later the Constitution cleared out for Tahiti, and I couldn't learn anything more about Hayston. Whether he was then in command of a vessel, or had merely come up as passenger in some other ship, I could not ascertain. All the bar-keeper knew about him was that he was a gentleman with plenty of money and a h—l of a temper, if anybody bothered him with questions.

Little I thought at the time that we were fated to meet again, or that where we once more forgathered would be under the tropic sun of Polynesia.