Otoo spurred me on to it. He sailed with me as second mate on my
first schooner, and he was far prouder of my command than was I
myself. Later on it was:
"The captain is well paid, master, but the ship is in his keeping
and he is never free from the burden. It is the owner who is
better paid, the owner who sits ashore with many servants and
turns his money over."
"True, but a schooner costs five thousand dollars--an old
schooner at that," I objected. "I should be an old man before I
saved five thousand dollars. "
"There be short ways for white men to make money," he went on,
pointing ashore at the cocoanut-fringed beach.
We were in the Solomons at the time, picking up a cargo of
ivory-nuts along the east coast of Guadalcanar.
"Between this river mouth and the next it is two miles," he said.
"The flat land runs far back. It is worth nothing now. Next
year--who knows!--or the year after--men will pay much money for
that land. The anchorage is good. Big steamers can lie close up.
You can buy the land four miles deep from the old chief for ten
thousand sticks of tobacco, ten bottles of squareface, and a
Snider, which will cost you maybe one hundred dollars.
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