a year or so?"

"Wot's that you say, capting?" inquired honest John, who was evidently
lost in admiration of the magnificent scene that lay spread out before
him.

"I ask if you have no objection to come to an anchor here for a time,"
repeated the captain.

"Objection! I'll tell ye wot it is, capting, I never seed sich a place
afore in all my born days. Why, it's a slice out o' paradise. I do
believe if Adam and Eve wos here they'd think they'd got back again
into Eden. It's more beautifuller than the blue ocean, by a long chalk;
an' if you wants a feller that's handy at a'most anything after a
fashion,--a jack-of-all-trades and master of-none (except seamanship,
which ain't o' no use here),--Jo Bumpus is your man!"

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Jo," said Henry, laughing, "for we are
greatly in need of white men of your stamp in these times, when the
savages are so fierce against each other that they are like to eat us up
altogether, merely by way of keeping their hands in practise."

"_White_ men of my stamp!" remarked Bumpus, surveying complacently his
deeply-bronzed hands, which were only a shade darker than his visage;
"well, I would like to know what ye call black if I'm a white man."

"Blood, and not skin, is what stamps the color of the man, Jo. If it
were agreeable to Captain Gascoyne to let you off your engagement to
him, I think I could make it worth your while to engage with me, and
would find you plenty of work of all kinds, including a little of that