News came from Lucinda Point to Clump Point--passed from one to another--that Tom's half-brother (a purely fictional relationship) had died, leaving a young widow. According to Tom's rendering of the matrimonial laws, he was the rightful heir. The widow was all that his half-brother had left that was of the slightest consequence. Tom, telling the circumstances, asked for a holiday that he might personally lay claim to his inheritance. Reminded that he had one wife, he frankly declared in Nelly's presence, and she seemed to acquiesce, that she was no good; but that the other one was a "good fella" in every respect, even to washing plates and scrubbing floors. His holiday was granted. He went away with money in his pockets, blankets, several changes of raiment--among them Nelly's best dress and hat, dilly-bags brightly coloured, and weapons--boomerang, two black palm spears, a great wooden sword, a shield decorated with a complicated pattern in red and white earth, and a flashing new tomahawk. So he departed, with Nelly's best wishes, and full of hope and expectation, promising to return in two weeks. Two months slipped past, and one evening a forlorn, ragged, lean scarecrow of a black boy--without a hat, unshaven, without a blanket, and even destitute of a pipe, clambered over the side of the steamer, and dropped into the boat without a word. It was Tom! In shreds and patches the history of his experience was related. He had arrived at Lucinda, had charmed "Little Jinny" with his manly presence and spruceness and the amount of his personal property, supplemented by the display and free bestowal of Nelly's choicest finery, and had, as a matter of course, been compelled to fight for her. He had been beaten, terribly beaten. One ear had been viciously "marked," a triangular slice being missing (a subsequent combat removed all trace of this mark), and he showed the meritorious scar of a spear-wound on the arm. Having failed in the stand-up fight, he had resorted to stratagem, had been foiled, and forced to flee, abandoning everything, even to that last vestige of independence--his pipe. We knew that he had been hard pressed, for on going gaily away he had volunteered to bring a fat young pig from one of the wild herds of Hinchinbrook, and he came back empty-handed. He talks of the pig--how fat and very young it was--even to this day. He came with his life--that was all, and a threadbare sort of life it was at that. Several months went by--a black boy recovers condition in a day or two as does a starved dog--and Tom had saved money. He never forgets, never swerves from a purpose. He is as determined as a dung-beetle. Another leave of absence was granted. A second raid was made upon Nelly's wardrobe--two big bailer shells. Elated, freshly shaved and smiling, he was a different sort from the individual who had shamefacedly slipped over the side of the steamer, bereft of everything but life.