"I gave him a passage, at any rate. He was willing enough, but it was absurd to talk of working his way--when we'd been out three days I knew that his eyes would never see another landfall. I put him in a berth in the spare stateroom. He'd picked up his English on the beach, but in French you'd have been surprised to hear the fellow talk. With the interest one cannot help feeling in a dying man, I spent a good deal of time yarning with him, and finally told him that I had heard something of his story and had known Turia on Iriatai. He was in a steady low fever by this time, and our talks seemed to excite him; he asked endless questions about his mother and her life--the island--the lagoon. "One night, when I was at the wheel, the cabin boy came on deck, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, to say that von Tesmar wanted to see me at once. There was something of great importance to tell me, it seemed. We were in the middle of the wide, lonely reach of sea that stretches from Rose Island to the Leeward group. The moon had risen about eleven o'clock; there was not a cloud in the sky, and a steady breeze blew warm and fair from the northwest. I had taken the wheel at moonrise and I hated to go below, but the half-caste's message seemed so urgent that I called the man on watch to take my place. "I found von Tesmar gasping in his berth. He had gotten up to undo a bundle he carried with him, wrapped in a piece of native cloth, and when I pulled the curtain aside, he held out to me a tattered sheet of cheap ruled notepaper.