De Jiminez had bustled around all day getting the ship’s papers in shape and preparing for the voyage, while young Alfonso, whom Uncle Naboth had promptly dubbed “Little Jim,” attended to the loading of the boxes with the coolness and care of a veteran. They couldn’t wait a moment after the last case of arms was aboard. Bill Brace, the engineer, had steam up long ahead of time; so at dusk we hoisted anchor and slowly steamed out of Port Phillip into the calm blue waters of the South Pacific. If any government spies watched De Jiminez depart he was indifferent to them, and they were now powerless to interfere with his plans. The comfort of our passengers depended wholly upon two men of our crew whom I have not yet had the opportunity of introducing to you. Our own personal comfort had depended upon them for years, so I am justified in making the above statement. They were gigantic blacks; not negroes of the African type, but straight-haired ebony fellows who were natives of some island in these very seas where we were now sailing. Their names were Nux and Bryonia, and one was our steward and the other our cook—fairly entitled, indeed, to be called our “chef.” Concerning these curious names there is a serio-comic story which I will briefly relate. A number of years ago, while Uncle Naboth Perkins was sailing an old tub he and my father jointly owned on a voyage from New Zealand to San Francisco, he encountered somewhere in the South Seas a native canoe drifting upon the waves. It seemed at first to be vacant, but as it passed close to the lee of the slow-going sailing vessel the seamen noticed something lying flat in the bottom of the dugout. They threw a grappling hook and drew the little boat alongside, when they discovered two black men lying bound hand and foot and senseless from lack of food and water. How many days they had drifted about in that condition no one could tell, least of all the poor victims. Being hoisted aboard the bodies were laid side by side upon the deck and Uncle Naboth, who was the only excuse for a physician there was aboard, examined them and found that both were still alive. But the condition of the poor fellows was exceedingly precarious. Had they not possessed such stalwart frames and splendid constitutions they would have been dead long before. So Uncle Naboth brought out the ship’s medicine chest and found it rather shy of restoratives. Aside from calomel and quinine, neither of which seemed appropriate for the case, the only remedies the chest contained were two bottles of homeopathic pills—one of nux vomica and the other of bryonia.