waspish little third had become second; Louis Silva, the captain’s favourite harpooner was third; and I was to be fourth.  Not feeling at all sure of how the other harpooners would take my stepping over their heads, I respectfully demurred to the compliment offered me, stating my reasons.  But the captain said he had fully made up his mind, after consultation with the other officers, and that I need have no apprehension on the score of the harpooners’ jealousy; that they had been spoken to on the subject, and they were all agreed that the captain’s choice was the best, especially as none of them knew anything of navigation, or could write their own names.

In consequence of there being none of the crew fit to take a harpooner’s place, I was now really harpooner of the captain’s boat, which he would continue to work, when necessary, until we were able to ship a harpooner, which he hoped to do at Hawaii.

The news of my promotion was received in grim silence by the Portuguese forward, but the white men all seemed pleased.  This was highly gratifying to me, for I had tried my best to be helpful to all, as far as my limited abilities would let me; nor do I think I had an enemy in the ship.  Behold me, then, a full-blown “mister,” with a definite substantial increase in my prospects of pay of nearly one-third, in addition to many other advantages, which, under the new captain, promised exceedingly well.

More than half the voyage lay behind us, looking like the fast-settling bank of storm-clouds hovering above the tempest-tossed sea so lately passed, while ahead the bright horizon was full of promise of fine weather for the remainder of the journey.

*

CHAPTER XVII

VISIT TO HONOLULU

Right glad were we all when, after much fumbling and box-hauling about, we once more felt the long, familiar roll of the Pacific swell, and saw the dim fastnesses of the smoky islands fading into the lowering gloom astern.  Most deep-water sailors are familiar, by report if not by actual contact, with the beauties of the Pacific islands, and I had often longed to visit them to see for myself whether the half that had been told me was true.  Of course, to a great number of seafaring men, the loveliness of those regions counts for nothing, their desirability being founded upon the frequent opportunities of unlimited indulgence in debauchery.  To such men, a “missionary” island is a howling wilderness, and the missionaries themselves the subjects of the vilest abuse as well as the most boundless lying.

No one who has travelled with his eyes open would assert that all missionaries were wise, prudent, or even godly men; while it is a great deal to be regretted that so much is made of hardships which in a large proportion of cases do not exist, the men who are supposed to be enduring them being immensely better off and more comfortable than they would ever have been at home.  Undoubtedly the pioneers of missionary enterprise had, almost without exception, to face dangers and miseries past telling, but that is the portion of pioneers in general.  In these days, however, the missionary’s lot in Polynesia is not often a hard one, and in many cases it is infinitely to be preferred to a life among the very poor of our great cities.