Two were Americans, one was Ah Choon (the whitest Chinese I have ever
known), one was a German, one was a Polish Jew, and I completed the
half dozen.

It had been a prosperous season. Not one of us had cause for
complaint, nor one of the eighty-five deck passengers either. All had
done well, and all were looking forward to a rest-off and a good time
in Papeete.

Of course, the Petite Jeanne was overloaded. She was only seventy
tons, and she had no right to carry a tithe of the mob she had on
board. Beneath her hatches she was crammed and jammed with pearl shell
and copra. Even the trade room was packed full with shell. It was a
miracle that the sailors could work her. There was no moving about the
decks. They simply climbed back and forth along the rails.

In the night time they walked upon the sleepers, who carpeted the
deck, I'll swear, two deep. Oh! And there were pigs and chickens on
deck, and sacks of yams, while every conceivable place was festooned
with strings of drinking cocoanuts and bunches of bananas. On both
sides, between the fore and main shrouds, guys had been stretched,
just low enough for the foreboom to swing clear; and from each of
these guys at least fifty bunches of bananas were suspended.

It promised to be a messy passage, even if we did make it in the two
or three days that would have been required if the southeast trades
had been blowing fresh. But they weren't blowing fresh. After the
first five hours the trade died away in a dozen or so gasping fans.
The calm continued all that night and the next day--one of those
glaring, glassy, calms, when the very thought of opening one's eyes to