"I am very glad to have fallen in with you," said he, "and I wish you
much success in your missionary labours. Pray take me to your cabin, as
I wish to converse with you privately."
The missionary immediately took him by the hand, and as he led him away
I heard him saying, "Me most glad to find you trader; we t'ought you be
pirate. You very like one 'bout the masts."
What conversation the captain had with this man I never heard, but he
came on deck again in a quarter of an hour, and shaking hands cordially
with the missionary, ordered us into our boat and returned to the
schooner, which was immediately put before the wind. In a few minutes
the _Olive Branch_ was left far behind us.
That afternoon, as I was down below at dinner, I heard the men talking
about this curious ship.
"I wonder," said one, "why our captain looked so sweet on yon swallow-
tailed supercargo o' pigs and Gospels. If it had been an ordinary
trader, now, he would have taken as many o' the pigs as he required and
sent the ship with all on board to the bottom."
"Why, Dick, you must be new to these seas if you don't know that,"
cried another. "The captain cares as much for the Gospel as you do (an'
that's precious little), but he knows, and everybody knows, that the
only place among the southern islands where a ship can put in and get
what she wants in comfort is where the Gospel has been sent to. There
are hundreds o' islands, at this blessed moment, where you might as
well jump straight into a shark's maw as land without a band o' thirty
comrades armed to the teeth to back you.
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