“Would you call it good luck, or bad, Timmie?” “I should call it hard luck, Peter. Would n’t you?” “Well,” he answered slowly, “she ain’t mine, and I don’t believe in looking for trouble. I suppose Cap’n Coffin calls it hard luck. You can see for yourself.” And he jerked his head in the direction of the after house. There stood Captain Coffin, a glass glued to his eye. He said nothing, but he had no need to. Anybody could tell from his face what his thoughts were. {345} At Papeete we got our water, and our extra casks, although some of them had to be lashed on deck, as the hold was full. It took several days to get this done, for extra casks were not plentiful, and the men could not be denied some liberty ashore. The pleasures that Papeete offered to our shore-famished men were alluring, and it was hard to get them back. I could understand this, for I went ashore too. I managed to resist the allurements of the place, thanks more to Peter than to any tendency on my own part to asceticism, and I had a thoroughly good time. When I got back to the ship I found that Captain Coffin had been making inquiries, and had found that the Annie Battles, under the name of the Seafoam, had sailed on a trading trip among the islands to the eastward, the Paumotus and the Marquesas. He was as excited as a boy, and full of eagerness and glee. We got our men back at last, and sailed to the northward. I was surprised at this, for we were bound home, and for the most rapid passage around the Horn we should have started out to the southward; but I thought it likely that Captain Coffin had persuaded Captain Nelson to have a last try at the Battles. If she stopped at the islands, as she would, making frequent stops, we should be close on her heels, and might reasonably hope to catch her. At one of the Marquesas Islands, too, there was a well-known spring of very good water, emptying on the beach. Whalers often touched there for water, and it might have been in Captain Nelson’s mind to fill up his casks there for the long run around the Horn. The days passed, and nothing happened. Whatever eagerness I had felt oozed away; but Captain Coffin’s did not, I judged. He was silent, restless, tense with it, especially as we began to raise the Paumotus, one after another. These are atolls, with the usual coral reefs, sea-beach, and lagoon, none of them more than a few feet above sea level. The topmasts of the Battles would be {346} easily seen above them, unless some unusually tall coconut trees were in the way. We did not go far into the archipelago, for it is dangerous navigation there for a vessel as large as the Clearchus, and one no more easily manageable. The passages are filled with hidden dangers, and the currents swift and treacherous.