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She wanted to throw herself on her knees and kiss his hands; and when he forced her up, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, saying he was her preserver, and how he had saved her from worse than death, and so overflowing and grateful and outspoken that nobody knew where to look, least of all the captain, who turned all colors, and couldn’t say anything but “You’re welcome,” like a ninny.

We cleared a little space for Tweedie to pray in, which was his way of celebrating, and couldn’t very well be prevented, and the king followed with a speech what he’d do to Afiola when he caught him–the tarnation liar! The crew came off, swimming in ones and twos to beg for pardon, and the prisoners were unbound and given three crates of biscuit and three barrels of pork and some boat sails to wrap the corpses in, and there was more hurrah-boys and good feeling and port wine in the cabin than you could ever have thought possible under the circumstances.

* * * * *

Was that all? Well, for a time it was, Coe slipping out at dawn on the ebb with a cargo of Afiola rapscallions he was to drop, one here, one there, all around the Group, we having no further use for them in Puna Punou.

The measles struck us shortly afterwards in a Tahiti bark, and it carried off a sight of people, Afiola included, who was in a sort of armed hiding on the other side of the island. Tweedie, too, who had always been a complaining whelp, started up a cough about this time, and died. Of course, this wasn’t right off, but spread over a matter of eighteen months or more, Coe coming and going regular in the Peep o’ Day, and Mrs. Tweedie more blooming than ever.

Coe turned up from Sydney, where he had gone for a general refitting and overhaul, just as Mrs. Tweedie was taking her passage in the Olive Branch, missionary auxiliary barkentine for Honolulu. None of the saints would have a word to say to him, calling him “the man of blood,” and ordering him off the ship, as he stood his ground and wouldn’t budge even when the anchor was apeak and the barkentine under steerage way. But he kept singing out for her while they tried to hustle him over the side and into his boat, and the more they hustled the louder he shouted, “Mrs. Tweedie! Mrs. Tweedie!” till at last she heard him in her cabin below, and came running up, smiling, and arranging her hair with her hands.

It was a tight place for Coe, having to do his courting while they were moving him on like the police; but, for all that, when he went down the ladder it was with Mrs. Tweedie with him, and they pulled ashore and were married by the Kanaka pastor, and went a-honeymooning in the Peep o’ Day, bringing up in Papiete three weeks later, to buy her some clothes, for every stitch to her name was beating up to Honolulu in the Olive Branch.