"You're not afraid of ghosts, eh?" my uncle asked me with a smile. "The poor devil died in that very bunk, but he's never troubled us since, and if he did appear, he'd be harmless enough. Come--I want you to know my boys; excepting the cook I shipped in 'Frisco, I've known them all for years." They were Kanakas--brown Polynesians of the islands, akin to the Hawaiian people and to the Maoris of far-away New Zealand. Ivi and Ofai I already knew. Fatu, the mate, was a huge silent fellow with a smile in his quick dark eyes--a nobly proportioned giant. The engineer, Pahuri, was an elderly Rarotongan with a passion for fishing: a small man, gray, wrinkled, and talkative. He had followed the sea since boyhood and had visited many parts of the world on whaling vessels and on merchant ships. His heart was kind, but he possessed a biting tongue and his travels had made him cynical. Then came Rairi, the half-caste cook my uncle had found stranded in San Francisco after a voyage before the mast. He was a shade lighter than the others, with a handsome, sullen face: a tall man and powerfully built, though dwarfed in the presence of the mate. Rairi spoke a little English, picked up along the waterfront, and had a pleasant manner when he wished to make himself agreeable, but at other times his features were of a forbidding cast. He cooked, and cooked well, in his box of a galley, set on the forward deck above the hold. Outside of his duties he had little to do with the men, as if his strain of white blood caused him to hold aloof. Last of all came Marama the cabin boy, who served our meals, polished brasses, and made himself useful whenever there was an odd job on hand. He was a brown lad of my own age, though larger and much stronger than I, and I liked him from the moment we met. He was a cheerful worker, his black eyes were bright with humor and intelligence, and he never lost his temper when a lurch of the deck threw a potful of hot coffee over his feet. His father, Uncle Harry told me, was a chief on Raiatea. "We're heading straight for Raiatea," said my uncle as we sat at dinner that night. "I want you to stop there while I run across to unload my cargo at Tahiti. It's a fine island and the chief of Faatemu is a great friend of mine. You can put up at his house; I'll leave young Marama to keep you company. He knows a bit of English--that will help you at first. By the way, you'll need to pick up the native as fast as you can; the man who can't speak with them is handicapped. It's easy to learn; why not work at it during our passage South? I'll help you and so will any of the men; it always pleases them to find one of us interested in their language. Try memorizing a few words a day at the start, then the simple phrases will come to you, and before you know it, you'll be yarning with the crew.