Following Frenchy's sickness, Australia and I chummed together as Frenchy, by common consent, was allowed to perch on a coil of rope on the main hatch just forward of the mast during the night watches, the mate winking at this whenever the weather was not too bad.

On such nights Australia and I would stump the wet deck and we got to be very good friends. Unlike so many of the crew, I remember his name, John Roth, and from what he told me at various times I knew that he had come from a good family, as such things go, people in easy circumstances. His grandfather had settled in England, coming originally from southern Germany, and his father had taken over and extended a business founded at that time. Roth had received a good education, evidently, though he was of a shiftless temperament and his talk savored of the fo'c'sle and not the schools. He unburdened himself as we tramped the deck and I found him to be a charming companion and much deeper than was my idea of the devil-may-care deserter from the Falls of Ettrick, who had impressed me as a sort of scatterbrained ne'er-do-well, when we first bumped against each other in the fo'c'sle of the Fuller, for my bunk was ahead of his, as we settled down in that first mixup, months before.

"I'll tell you, Felix, there's lots of blokes who have had less chances than me, and is well off today. I always got in the way of trouble and you bet trouble never missed me once."

This sounded like something new, so I kept my mouth closed instead of replying after the usual manner of deck chums making conversation.

"When my father died," went on Australia, after a long pause, "my brother took the management of the business. He was in the building trade and doing very well at it, supporting mother, two sisters, brother and myself. My brother James had quit school and was helping father at the time of his death. I was at school near Winchester, much to my disgust, for I hated school and wanted to go to sea." Australia paused. He was strangely sober and we paced on deck for a turn or two in silence. Then he continued, and I remember how his words came slowly but with a long-forgotten attention to choice and grammar.

"On the settlement of the estate of my father a small legacy of four hundred pounds was left me, and with the business safe in the care of my brother I felt at liberty to quit school and go to sea. I had an idea that I would settle down somewhere with my money and be a gentleman planter, or something like that. At any rate, I cashed in and, with more money in my pocket than was good for me, put to sea in the fo'c'sle of a ship out of London bound for Melbourne. I'll call her the Iverclyde, that's near enough. They shipped me 'ordinary,' and when I handed the mate a five-quid note, as I asked for the job, he was sure he had hooked a fool, or a lunatic. The rest of my fortune I carried in a wallet in the bottom of my chest, a place no one would ever think of searching for money.

"The Iverclyde was an iron ship, a wet ship, if you know what I mean. We was drowned and we was starved, but never overworked. Once the crowd went aft and told the mate they wanted to put the main topgans'l on her, as she was rolling so. The mate he says, 'All right, Bo'sun, set the main topgallant sail,' and that is the way we worked.

"We ran into Table Bay, with a sprung bowsprit, lifted loose of the gammoning when she was taken aback while the mate was sleeping against the binnacle. This was my chance, and by use of another note, I got smuggled ashore with a suit of dirty dungaree and a big bundle of damp Bank of England notes, leaving the rest of my kit behind. I soon got some decent clothes, and put up at the Royal Hotel. The life in Cape Town suited me, I made friends among a fast bunch, spent the filthy, and enjoyed the air of mystery that surrounded me. No one ever suspected that I was from the Iverclyde, though I saw our captain walk by the hotel once; in fact I was very safe there.

"Shortly after the ship left, I found that I was being shadowed. Some bloke was always in my wake. I tried to get him and blow him to a dog watch of drinks and find out his game, but it was no use. When they saw I was on to them, for they watched every move I made, and I was spending free, the gentleman aft gives the signal and I am arrested. It seems that an embezzler was wanted and they had me spotted for the game. Not knowing the lay they was on, I did not get my story straight at first, thinking they was still after me for deserting the Iverclyde. This was bad. They chucked me in jail and kept me there for three months, lifting what was left of my wad. 'I say, is this all that's left?' the officer exclaims, counting the notes. They expected to pick up about ten thousand pounds.

"When the correctness of my story was proved, they let me go. I heard that the blackleg they was after was caught in Calcutta.

"Sure, they let me out and gave me what was left of my wad. Almost half gone, but then I had three months of lodging and tucker free and a little over two hundred saved. I was a wiser one after that, but I was still a fool, which was something I did not find out till later.

"In order to get away from Cape Town, and at the same time follow my idea of settling down in some warm climate where a man can become a planter and have a lot of blacks do the work for him, I shipped before the mast on the Dutch bark Java, out of Amsterdam, bound for Batavia. This craft had put in short of water and several hands who had died on the passage down to the Cape. The Java was unlucky. The most unlucky tub that ever sailed, except the Flying Dutchman, but unlucky enough for any real ship. We winds up in a typhoon, a hundred miles west of the Sunda Strait. The masts went by the board and at the end of the blow, after two days of pumping and praying, a steamer picks us up. She was bound for Singapore. The second mate of the steamer, a young fellow from London, decided he wanted to work the Java into port, his idea being Anjer. The skipper says 'all right' and he called for volunteers. As I said, I was still a fool, so I joined five other men and with the young second mate we was put on board the Java; I was the only one of her own crew and this scared me. Them Dutchmen knew when they were well off; and they stayed aboard the steamer.

"The second mate of the steamer did not know exactly what to do. He said, 'We will get up a jury mast,' but there was nothing to make a jury mast out of. The steamer was far down on the horizon when we found by sounding the well that the old tub was gaining water fast. After that we did nothing but pump. We pumps for the best part of a week. I don't remember what we ate, or if we did not eat. The crowd on board curses our young skipper, and pumps. They kept on pumping because we found the long boat that we depended upon stove in and all of the thwarts smashed.

"At the end of the week another blow comes up from the West. 'So long, good old London Town,' one of our fellows sings out. 'The hell with dyin' tired,' and he drops the pump handle and sits down. We all do the same, and the second mate, who took his trick along with the rest, says, 'I guess you are right; we might as well rest a bit before swimming.'

"We rested all afternoon and till late at night. I had my wad in a pouch at my belt and each of us had two life belts. We ate a little; the young second mate found a small beaker of rum in the cabin and we had some of that, and some hard bread and a hunk of cheese. I drank very little rum; I was afraid of going to sleep.

"At about midnight we caught the beach. We were in the breakers before we knew it and when she struck, the sea breached over her and away we went. I lost my two life belts the first thing and made up my mind to die, but I held my breath. Might as well die with my lungs full of air I figured as I went over and over. The water was warm, and I did not mind it. Before I knew where I was, I washed up on the beach and was lucky enough to get clear of the undertow. All I had on was a pair of torn pants and my belt with the soaked notes. Not a sign was to be had of any of the salvage crew, and the beach for miles was strewn with bits of wreckage. At daylight I was met by a man coming out from behind a clump of small trees. He was dressed in dirty white clothes and had a young beard. I told him the yarn of the wreck and asked him where I was. He directed me to Anjer, about thirty miles east along the coast. I asked him if he could give me some clothes. He said yes, if I would wait where I was he would be back in about two hours.

"Well, to make a long story short, as they say, I waited, being a natural born fool and not knowing any better. Still," and Australia paused in his extraordinary tale, "I don't think anyone else would have done different. I was so glad about meeting this man that I carefully unrolled a wet five-pound note and set it out on a rock to dry, weighting it with a little stone. I wanted to square him for his trouble.

"About noon my man shows up. He has a suit of white cotton clothes that were not any too new, a pair of shoes, brogans, they call them, and a straw sun helmet. He also gave me a half loaf of bread, after I handed him the five-quid note. This took his breath away, so he got reckless.

"About two miles out of Anjer I was met by two constables. They ran at me so fast that I knew there was something wrong and before I could say Jack Robinson they had the bracelets on me, and was going through my pockets for weapons. They got the wad, and that settled me. 'Gawd,' I says, 'what am I in for now?' My clothes was stripped off of me in the jail, and took as evidence, I found out later. When my shoes came off, my left foot, for I wore no sox, was a dull red, like rust—this was blood.

"'You are charged with murdering the keeper of the Fourth Point Light!'

"'Great Gawd!' I cries, 'what next!'

"Well, they has me, and no mistake. I am a British subject and I set up a roar. The Consul was called, and I tried my best to get him to believe my story. It was no go. 'Bally rot!' he says.

"I was sent to Batavia, and held for murder. Fortunately my story about what happened in Cape Town was verified in an unexpected manner or things would have gone hard with me. What saved me was a newspaper story of my jail term in that port, my belt of money, and my hard luck in being taken for the crook. This tallied with my yarn when I gave an account of myself, and the fact that the Java had sailed, as I said, and the story of the salvage crew put on her, sent on from Singapore when the steamer arrived, helped me. The British Consul took up matters, and by spending the greater part of what I had left, funds that were again at my disposal, I cleared myself. However, in the meantime, my people in England had got the story of my being a murderer with full details of the horrible deed. It killed my mother, who was in feeble health. Nothing of the clearing up ever reached the other members of my family and to them I am a murderer to this day.

"I left Batavia on a tramp steamer bound for Sydney, a wiser young fellow than ever before, also a much poorer one, for I had just two pounds in my pocket when I went ashore.

"My narrow escapes had the effect of making me restless. In the next two years I worked at every trade and calling that I could lay my hands to. I tried sheepherding, I went into the bush and tried farming, working as a laborer. I worked as a blacksmith in Sydney after picking up something of the trade travelling with a small circus. In Melbourne I started a very good business in peddling milk. I gave this up as soon as it began to pay me and I could afford the help to make it easier. Again I shipped to sea. News of my mother's death had reached me, and I worked my way back to England. My brother had married and would have nothing to do with me. My name was never mentioned in his home. Both of my sisters had married and moved away, one to Scotland and one to America—Canada, I think. Then I went to Liverpool and shipped on the iron bark Falls of Ettrick. Now that is my story. Rotten, eh? Well, I hope some day to settle down, and quit this thing for good. I have cheated the rope out of a good stiff by helping along the murderer with five-quid, and nearly paid for it with my own neck; I almost got mine a number of times before and since. If I had a decent chance I could make good, if I only could settle down and stick."

"You ought to get married; that would settle you, Australia, old boy," I offered, somewhat taken aback at the recital, for it was poured out from the heart. I knew that a strange sort of adventurer was telling me the things closest to his soul. What I said jarred.

"Married? Say, kid, I've tried that game. Yes, sir, I've been married twice, and I suppose they could jail me for that, too."

"Twice?"

"You bet. Once in Melbourne, and again in London, when I came home and found I was a murderer yet."

"What happened to your wives?"

"I don't know. Guess they are married again, leastways the one in London is. She was no good. Thought I was a rich bushman and wanted to get in on the wad. But the wife in Melbourne was decent. I should have stuck; that was when I was in the milk business." Australia paused. "I hope she sold that for a decent figure. You see she was expecting something, and—oh, rats—what am I saying——"

"Weather main brace!" sang out the mate, and in a moment we were tailing to the rope, and Fred and Black Joe were wailing in the night as we swigged at it. The watch was nearly over and Mr. Zerk was working the sleep out of us. As for me, I was wide awake. Australia never mentioned his story again, except to say in an offhand way that it was all a lie about being married twice. "I just wanted to see how far I could go with you," he said.

Australia was a wiry chap of medium size, full of life and a distinct ornament to the fo'c'sle. He was never at a loss for a witty retort and his sallies at the expense of the mate—during the watch below of course—furnished endless amusement. He always shaved in port except for a diminutive mustache, but at sea he sported a growth of beard, merely trimming this with a large pair of scissors such as tailors use for cutting heavy cloth, a murderous weapon that he carried in a canvas sheath nailed to the inside cover of his sea chest.

Unlike sailors on shorter runs, and that hybrid animal, the deckhand in steam, the sailor on board a deepwater ship has a sense of home. He occupies the same bunk for a year or more at a time, and in spite of the way he is robbed, or perhaps I should say, was robbed, he carried a small accumulation of household goods, things that the crimps and boarding masters did not consider worth while stealing. Every bunk in a measure reflected the personal taste of the owner.

Australia was one of the few men on board the Fuller who owned a mirror. When he wanted to nail this up under the lamp in the fo'c'sle, there was a storm of protest, and the damning implement of an effete civilization was again restored to his chest. A mirror was only permissible on rare occasions when a man shaved; otherwise it was taboo.