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I noticed, however, that he did not return to the trade-room, but sneaked off the ship without seeing Bo again, and kept well out of sight on shore until the actual moment of our sailing. When I went in to pay a sort of duty call on my prisoner, I found her huddled up on the mats and to all appearance fast asleep; and I was not a little disappointed to find that she had not escaped in the bustle of our departure. Now that I was her master in good earnest and irrevocably bound to her for better or worse, I became a prey to the most dismal misgivings, and cursed the ill-judged benevolence that had led me into such a mess. And as for bread, the very sight of it was enough to plunge me into gloom, and when we sat down that day to lunch I asked the steward, as a favour, to allow me seamen’s biscuit in its stead.

Every few hours I carried food to Bo and tried to make her sit up and eat; but, except for a little water, she permitted nothing to pass her lips, but lay limp and apathetic on the square of matting. The monkey and parrot showed more appetite, and gobbled up whole platefuls of soup and stew and preserved fruit, which at first I left on the floor in the hope that their mistress might be the less shy when my back was turned. Finally I decided to remove the pets altogether, for they were intolerably dirty in their habits, and I could not but think that Bo would be better off without a frowsy parrot roosting in her hair and a monkey biting her in play, especially as she was in the throes of a deathly seasickness and powerless to protect herself. Getting the parrot on deck was a comparatively simple matter, though he squawked a good deal and talked loudly in the Pingalap language. At last I stowed him safely away in a chicken-coop, where I was glad to see him well trounced by some enormous fowls with feathered trousers down their legs. But the monkey was not so lightly ravished from his mistress. He was as strong as a man and extraordinarily vicious; in ten steps I got ten bites, and came on deck with my pyjamas in blood and rags, he screeching like a thousand devils and clawing the air with fury. For the promise of a dollar I managed to unload him on old Louey, one of the sailors of the ship, who volunteered to make a muzzle for the brute, and tie him up until it was ready. But as I was still panting with my exertions, and cursing the foolishness that had ever led me into such a scrape, I heard from behind me a kind of heartbroken wail, and turned to see Bo emerging from the trade-room door. I am ashamed to say I trembled at the sight of her, for I recalled in a flash what the Beautiful Man had said of her temper when aroused, and I thought I should die of mortification were she to attack me now. But, fortunately, such was not her intention, though her face was overcast with reproach and indignation as she unsteadily stepped past me to the coop, where, with a cry, she threw open the door and clasped the parrot in her arms. Even as she did so, the trousered fowls themselves determined to make a break for liberty, and finding the barrier removed, they tumbled out in short order; and the ship happening at that moment to dip to leeward, two of them sailed unhesitatingly overboard and dropped in the white water astern. Subsequently I had the pleasure of paying Captain Mins five dollars for the pair. Bo next started for the monkey, which she took from old Louey’s unresisting hands, and almost cried over it as she unbound the line that held him. Having thus rescued both her pets, she retreated dizzily to the shelter of the trade-room, where I found her, half an hour later, lying in agony on the floor.