Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Treachery!My first feeling was one of simple annoyance with the three men who constituted the boat’s crew, because they had permitted themselves to be cajoled into visiting the village and leaving the boat unprotected upon the beach, instead of returning to the ship immediately after landing the skipper, as I had instructed them to do. But when a full hour had elapsed, with no sign of the return of the truants, my annoyance began to give place to a feeling of rapidly growing anxiety; and when that hour grew to two, with still no sign of the absentees, my anxiety merged into a feeling of downright alarm—nay, more than alarm, into a conviction that something very serious had happened.And now I found myself in an exceedingly awkward predicament; for while I felt that something ought to be done, I could not, for the life of me, decide what that something should be. Two alternatives suggested themselves, one being to arm all hands to the teeth, launch the gig, and go ashore to investigate; while the other was to remain aboard and prepare the schooner in every possible way to repel an attack, and at the same time to have everything ready for flight at a moment’s notice, if need be. The former was undoubtedly the proper thing to do, if one were to act upon the assumption that the natives had seized the white men who had landed, and were holding them as prisoners; but such an assumption was scarcely justified by the reputation which the Marquesas natives had earned for themselves, the story in circulation with regard to them being to the effect that it was their custom promptly to kill and eat any unfortunate whites who chanced to fall into their hands. If the six men who had been decoyed ashore that morning were already dead, nothing was to be gained by landing the remainder of theMartha’screw, except the infliction upon the natives of a sharp punishment—at a considerable amount of risk to ourselves of further loss in the pitched battle which would assuredly ensue.Also there was the possibility—nay, more, the very strong probability—that while we were busily engaged on shore in the attempt to administer salutary chastisement for the betrayal of our shipmates, a party of natives might board the unprotected schooner, slip her cable, and run her ashore; and then where should we be, with no means of retreat excepting our boats, which would doubtless also be seized? If we could only get hold of a native and ascertain from him what had become of the absentees we should know what to do: for if the missing men were merely prisoners we should be fully justified in taking the risk of attempting to rescue them; but if, on the other hand, they were already dead, the question of punishment might very well be left until a more fitting moment. But now there was not a solitary native to be seen anywhere, which, in my opinion, was a decidedly bad sign.The arrival of noon—by which hour the skipper fully expected to be back aboard the ship, but was not—found me still undecided upon the question of landing; but I had so far made up my mind that I had determined to arm all hands and put the schooner into as efficient a state of defence as possible. Accordingly I gave orders to have the arms and ammunition chests brought on deck, and instructed each man—there were only eight of us, all told, now—to arm himself with a cutlass and a brace of fully loaded revolvers, and also to have a loaded gun where he could put his hand upon it at a moment’s notice. Next I caused all fore-and-aft canvas to be loosed, all downhauls cast off, and all halyards ready for hoisting away at a moment’s notice; and when these orders had been duly executed it seemed to me that we had done everything that was possible.Yet the schooner was still in a very defenceless condition, so far as resisting the simultaneous attack of several hundred determined natives was concerned: we might empty our firearms upon them, and if every shot told—which was most unlikely, in the excitement attendant upon an attack—we should kill or wound precisely fifty-six of them; after which the eight of us would be fighting, hand to hand, with the remainder, who would outnumber us by at least twenty to one, and probably twice that number! What chance would we have under such conditions as those? Absolutely none at all. If, now, it were possible to raise the schooner’s bulwarks, or to render them unclimbable in some way!As I considered this the thought of the trawl net which the skipper had brought along for the purpose of dredging up the pearl-oysters occurred to me, and I instantly decided that it might, with a little ingenuity, be converted into an excellent boarding netting. It was made of extra stout hemp line, to resist the cutting action of the oyster shells over which it was proposed to be dragged, and also to bring up a good heavy load without bursting, and I at once recognised that if there was enough of it to trice up all round the schooner—and I believed there was—it might serve to keep the natives off our decks long enough to enable us to give them so severe a punishing as to cool their ardour effectually and ultimately beat them off. The idea was too good not to be utilised at once; and I gave instructions to have the net immediately routed out and brought on deck. It was a big, heavy affair, and it took the eight of us the best part of half an hour to clear it out of the sail-room and get it on deck; but when at length we had done so I at once saw that, with a certain amount of cutting and contriving, it might be made to serve its new purpose very excellently: and forthwith all hands of us fell upon it, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch had converted it into an exceedingly efficient boarding net. Then we triced it up, and felt that at last we were ready for whatever the fates—and the natives—might have in store for us.Meanwhile the jollyboat still lay abandoned upon the beach, and no sign of her crew or of the skipper and his two companions had been seen; nor had the strictest scrutiny, with the aid of the ship’s telescope, revealed any indication of natives ashore: in fact, so far as appearances alone were concerned, the island might have been uninhabited. But the continued absence of our shipmates, now prolonged far beyond all reasonable limits, left no doubt in any of our minds that something very seriously wrong had happened to them; and but for the circumstance that we were in complete ignorance as to what that happening really was, and the hope that some of them at least might still be alive, I would at once have got the schooner under way and gone to sea. But to do that was impossible while their fate was still in doubt; for not even to ensure our own safety against the attack that we were all convinced was impending could we do that which would amount to the abandonment of possibly living white men to the mercy of the savages.With the tricing up and securing of the boarding netting our preparations for the defence of the schooner were completed to the best of our ability; and now all that remained was for us to sit down and passively await events, which, in the present case, meant an attack by the savages at any moment after darkness had fallen sufficiently to conceal their movements. But, that we might be as fully prepared as possible, I gave instructions for the advancement of the supper hour, so that we might partake of that meal while there was still light enough to enable us to see our surroundings; and after that we busied ourselves about a general straightening up of the decks and the removal of all unnecessary hamper, in order that, if fight we must, we might at least fight with clear decks.Fortunately for us the night fell fine and clear, with brilliant starlight which enabled us to see all round the ship for a distance of about a couple of hundred yards; but inshore of us the shadow of the island lay jet-black upon the surface of the water, completely hiding all evidence of movement in that direction, even when I attempted to probe the blackness with the night glass. Therefore we were obliged to trust quite as much to our ears as to our eyes for warning of the approach of an enemy; but even they did not help us much, for the island was but a small one, and the thunder of the surf upon its weather shore, borne to us with almost startling distinctness, mingled with the sough of the wind among the trees and the lap of the ripples alongside, making with these a combination of sound that effectually screened any such movement as the launching of a canoe or the distant dip of paddles. I foresaw that this was likely to be a wakeful night for me, for with such a heavy load of responsibility upon my young shoulders I could not possibly have slept, even upon a bed of down. I therefore instructed the men to bring their beds on deck and snatch such rest as might come to them, while I kept a lookout. Also I made a point of striking the ship’s bell regularly every half-hour, in the faint hope that if the savages could be brought to realise that we were upon the alert they might, after all, decide not to risk an attack.With incredible slowness the laggard moments passed; the second dog-watch came to an end; and then, still more slowly, as it seemed to my impatience, first one, then two, three, four, and so on up to eight bells of the first watch were tolled out, and still there were no signs of the enemy. And all this while I was continuously padding round the decks in a pair of old felt-soled slippers, which effectually silenced my footsteps upon the planking, pausing for a moment at every half-dozen steps to peer anxiously but in vain into the shadow of the island for some indication of movement. Finally four bells of the middle watch arrived, and their passage was duly recorded by the strokes of the ship’s bell. Meanwhile the stress of the day’s anxiety, combined with my continuous and monotonous perambulation of the deck, and no doubt assisted by the soft coolness of the offshore breeze, laden with the odours of earth and vegetation, and the constant booming sound of the distant surf, was beginning to tell upon me; my jarred nerves had become steady, my breathing had become deep and regular, my limbs were growing weary, and my eyelids began occasionally to droop; in short, I was beginning to feel fatigued and in need of sleep.This, then, was evidently the moment at which to attempt to snatch a little rest, and I was debating within myself which of the men I should call to relieve me, or rather which of them I could best trust to keep an alert lookout, when I fancied I caught, just for an instant out of the corner of my eye, a faint, silvery gleam, as of the phosphorescence of disturbed water, deep in the heart of the darkest shadow in the direction of the beach. I looked more closely, and presently saw again, this time quite distinctly, the rippling, moon-like gleam of water disturbed as it might be by the launching of a boat or a canoe. Yes, there was no mistake about it, there was undoubtedly a movement of some sort in there; and even as I came to this conclusion I saw the thing repeated twice, thrice, five or six times, with spaces of a few yards between. That was enough; at last the savages were on the move, and in a moment my fatigue fell from me like a garment, and I was once again the incarnation of alertness. Without making a sound I glided along the deck in my old soft slippers, and, laying my hand lightly upon each sleeper’s shoulder, murmured in his ear: “The enemy is under way! Go to your station as noiselessly as possible, taking your gun with you; and do not fire until I give the word.”By the time that I had awakened my little band, and had seen each man at his proper station, it had become perfectly apparent that eight canoes were stealing slowly out toward us from the beach; for although they were still enveloped in deep shadow, and were being paddled so cautiously that not the faintest suspicion of a sound could be heard, it was possible for us to see distinctly, in the midst of the blackness, eight separate points of disturbance, each indicated by short, wavering lines of phosphorescent light, marking the slight ripple created by the gentle passage of some object through the water, in addition to which an occasional small luminous swirl indicated the stealthy dip of a paddle in the water at infrequent intervals. The excessive caution with which they were making their approach seemed to suggest an intention on the part of the savages to get as near as possible to the schooner unobserved, with probably a quick dash at the end to cover the last hundred feet or so of water.Crouching low behind the bulwarks, and levelling the ship’s night glass over the rail, I kept the instrument slowly sweeping athwart the advancing line of craft, and at length saw eight large canoes gradually take shape as they drew imperceptibly out of the heart of the deepest shadow. I endeavoured to count the number of occupants, but soon found this to be impossible in the dim light. I made a rough guess, however, and came to the conclusion that there were at least twenty in each canoe; it was evident therefore that, despite our superiority in the matter of weapons, there was a desperate struggle in store for us. I waited patiently until the canoes had approached us near enough to enable us to distinguish the loom of them with the unaided eye, and then, springing up on the wheel grating, I suddenly hailed:“Canoes ahoy! Keep off there! If you attempt to come any nearer I will open fire upon you.”A complete cessation of paddling immediately followed my hail. Possibly the savages were a trifle chagrined to discover that we were on the alert, or perhaps they did not fully understand what I had said—although I did not believe that, for most of the South Sea natives knew enough of English to enable an Englishman to make himself understood. Be that as it may, they paused long enough to enable me to call to the little band of defenders a final instruction.“Don’t fire, lads,” I said, “until you can see your mark distinctly. Then aim carefully, and make every shot tell. Much will depend upon the effect of our first volley, which we must therefore make as deadly as possible.”A low murmur of comprehension arose from the scanty crew ranged at wide intervals along the schooner’s port rail, that being the side which the natives were approaching. But before anything more could be said, a loud shout—in a voice the tones of which seemed somehow familiar to me—arose from one of the canoes, and was instantly answered by a yell that, from its volume of sound, must have emanated from the throats of nearly or quite two hundred savages; and then, without further attempt at concealment, a whole host of paddles suddenly dashed into the water, lashing it into long, swirling lines of luminous foam, and, with loud cries of mutual encouragement from the occupants, the eight big canoes surged forward and came rushing through the water at the schooner.“Keep cool, men,” I shouted above the din: “pick your mark; aim into the thick of them; and load and fire as many times as you can before they can get alongside.” And forthwith I led off with a shot aimed straight at the centre of the dark mass which represented the nearest canoe, at that moment distant about two hundred and fifty yards. My aim was true, and my bullet must have found a double mark, for two distinct shrieks responded a bare moment before a ragged volley of seven shots rang out from the rest of the defenders. More shrieks followed this discharge, but it did not stop the rush of the canoes, which now came sweeping toward us like so many steamers. Meanwhile I was busily engaged in slipping another cartridge into the breach of my piece, calculating upon being able to get in two more shots before the savages arrived alongside. And so, as a matter of fact, I did, as also did some of the others, with disastrous results for the savages, if the shrieks that followed upon each discharge were to be accepted as any criterion; and, apart from that, there was a noticeable wavering and hesitation on the part of the crews of two or three of the canoes after that third discharge. But the hesitation was only momentary; then the rascals gripped their courage afresh and drove their canoes alongside, four dashing up on our port side, and the remaining four essaying to board us to starboard. And when the canoes were within about four or five fathoms of the schooner’s side, with good way upon them, the savages suddenly laid in their paddles and, rising to their feet, hurled a heavy shower of spears at us, every one of which flew harmlessly over our heads, luckily for us.Then the heavy night air suddenly became vibrant with a medley of harsh, discordant sounds, compounded of the yells and shrieks of the savages, the fierce ejaculations of our own people, the quick, snapping explosions of revolvers, and the gasping groans of the wounded, as the natives swarmed up our low sides and suddenly found themselves confronted by the barrier of our improvised boarding net, through the meshes of which our lads pointed their revolvers and thrust furiously with their cutlasses, while the savages unavailingly strove to tear the stout strands apart and make an opening through which to pass, or thrust at us in their turn with their spears. Suddenly, in the dim starlight, as I was busily reloading my revolver, I saw the cook emerge from the galley with what looked like a bucket in his hand. With a quick twirl he seemed to throw the contents of this bucket through the net just where the savages were crowding thickest on the other side of it, and the next instant there arose a more than usually piercing chorus of shrieks, while the great bulk of the savages at that particular point appeared to melt away suddenly, and I heard the heavy impact of a number of bodies falling headlong into the canoes alongside.The “Doctor” paused a moment, apparently to note the effect of his experiment, and then he hastily returned to the galley, presently emerging again and repeating his former tactics with similar results. I subsequently learned that, when it became known that an attack of the savages might be certainly looked for, the cook had lighted a rousing fire in his galley, filled his coppers with a mixture of slush and salt water, and brought the whole to the boil, so arranging the matter that the mixture was in a state of furious ebullition by the time the savages arrived alongside. And wherever the blacks pressed thickest and most determinedly, there Cooky intervened with a bucketful of his scalding stuff, which he very effectively distributed over the naked bodies of a round dozen or so of our assailants by giving the bucket a neat twirl at the instant of discharge.But despite the effective aid thus rendered, matters were, on the whole, going rather badly for us, for two American forecastle hands were by this time down, transfixed by spears which pinned them to the deck, while the sailmaker and I were each punctured and bleeding freely, Sails having received a bad prick in his left shoulder, while a spear had passed completely through the fleshy part of my right thigh; in addition to which a party of savages, by concentrating their efforts upon one particular spot, had contrived to make a hole in the net, which they were rapidly enlarging. Of this last fact I was happily unaware, as indeed I was of the critical character of our situation generally, for it was forward, where Murdock, the ex-boatswain of theZenobia, was in charge, that matters were going so badly, while aft, where I was, we were doing pretty well.But Murdock was not the sort of man to be discouraged because for the moment he happened to be getting the worst of it; on the contrary, it was just that state of things that stirred him to extra effort, and it did so now. Perceiving that, unless something were done to prevent them effectively, the savages would soon force their way through the net—and thereafter make short work of all hands of us—Murdock sets his wits going, and presently thought out a plan which he immediately proceeded to put into operation. Seizing a half-empty case of revolver ammunition, he broke open about a dozen cartridges and arranged the powder in a little heap at the bottom of the case, burying one end of a length of extemporised fuse in the heap. Then he piled the cartridges on the top of the heap, placed the case on the windlass bitts, ignited the free end of the fuse, and rushed aft, yelling to us to throw ourselves flat upon our faces as he did so.So urgent was his call that we all instinctively obeyed it; and there we lay for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, while the savages, seeing the weak point suddenly deserted, swarmed about it in greatly augmented numbers, finally enlarging the hole in the net to such an extent that at length it was big enough to permit the passage of a man, when one after another they began to force their way through. It was at this precise moment that the spark of the burning fuse reached the powder, which of course instantly blew up, igniting the hundred or so of cartridges that remained in the case, and scattering the bullets in them in all directions. There was a quick flash of the ignited powder, immediately followed by the cracker-like reports of the exploding cartridges, a horrible chorus of yells and shrieks of wounded men, and then—sudden, complete silence, for the space of perhaps half a dozen breaths. Then came renewed groans and outcries, as the injured men felt the first smart of their wounds, followed by a sudden wailing cry, and with one accord the panic-stricken savages flung themselves back into their canoes, seized their paddles, and headed for the shore in frantic haste, being presently sped upon their way by the bullets which we poured into their midst as long as they remained in sight.Then, and not until then, we laid aside our weapons, mopped the perspiration and powder grime from our streaming brows, bound up each other’s wounds, and went forward to inspect the results of Murdock’s little experiment. It had been exceedingly effective, for scattered round the spot where the explosion had occurred we found no less than nineteen savages, of whom eleven were dead, five were more or less severely wounded, and three appeared to be only stunned. These three we promptly proceeded to bind hand and foot, during which operation we discovered that one of the trio was none other than friend Oahika, our “bumboat man in or’nary”, as the skipper had styled him. I was especially glad that this particular rascal had fallen into our hands, for during the progress of the fight I had frequently caught sight of him, by the light afforded by the flash of our revolvers, and had noticed that he was taking an exceptionally prominent part in the proceedings; while one or two circumstances which I had also noticed led me to suspect that he might possibly be a person of some importance among the natives of Roua Poua.And now, as with the assistance of three lanterns we proceeded with our investigations, the really desperate character of the struggle in which we had so recently been engaged began to be borne in upon us; for, in addition to the nineteen who had fallen victims to the boatswain’s contrivance, we found scattered about the ship twenty-six dead, and thirty-three more or less wounded natives; while others—with whom the sharks were already busy—were floating in the water near the ship. As for ourselves, we had lost two foremast hands, both of them Americans, while the remainder of us, with the solitary exception of the cook, had each his scratch to show, my own and the sailmaker’s being, fortunately, the only wounds that could be reasonably termed serious, while even they were of comparatively little moment, provided that gangrene did not supervene.And now, the natives having been beaten off, our next task was to straighten up after the fight, and a beginning was made by throwing all the dead—except our own two—overboard, where the sharks might be safely trusted to see to their speedy disposal. Then we overhauled the wounded savages: and such of them as had received only trifling hurts, and might therefore perhaps yet give us trouble if we were not careful, we bound securely; while the others we laid out on deck, and then proceeded to doctor up as well as our means and our very limited surgical knowledge permitted.It was while we were all thus busily engaged that the boatswain, happening to straighten his back for a moment and cast an alert glance across the water toward the shore, suddenly stood rigid and staring, and then remarked to me, in a low tone of voice:“Just look over there for a minute, Mr Temple. Ain’t that a canoe or somethin’ headin’ this way?”I looked in the direction indicated, and at once sighted a small, shapeless blot of deeper blackness in the shadow that enshrouded the whole of the west side of the island. But if it was a canoe it was certainly a very small craft; moreover, it was not coming from the direction of the beach, but from a point apparently about a mile to the north of it. We stood watching it for a full minute, or more, and then I caught the now familiar phosphorescent gleam of water which indicated the presence of a moving object.“Yes,” I said, “it certainly is a canoe, Murdock; but she seems to be only a very small affair, such as need give us no very serious amount of anxiety. We will keep an eye upon her for a minute or two and see what she is after. Perhaps it is a messenger from the natives coming off to treat with us for the surrender of the wounded. I hope it may be, because then we shall perhaps learn what has become of the skipper and the rest of the missing men.”As the canoe continued to approach, we observed a certain eccentricity in her behaviour, for instead of progressing in a straight line her course was a decidedzigzag, now heading one way and now another, to the extent of about four points of the compass; still it looked as though she was aiming for the schooner, for her general direction of approach was toward us. I procured the night glass and brought it to bear upon her, and was then able to distinguish that she was indeed an exceedingly diminutive craft, containing only one figure, who seemed to be sitting in her stern, and was paddling somewhat awkwardly, first on one side of her and then on the other, which probably accounted for her eccentricity of movement. Furthermore, as I continued to watch, a certain suggestion of familiarity grew upon me in connection with the appearance and actions of the paddling figure; and finally, when the canoe had approached to within about a hundred fathoms of the schooner, I put down the glass and hailed:“Canoe ahoy! what canoe is that?”“Hillo! is that you, Temple?” came the reply in Cunningham’s well-known voice.“Ay, ay,” I replied, “it is I, right enough. And glad I am to see that you are all right. Do you happen to know anything about the skipper?”“Got him here, in the bottom of the canoe,” was the reply. “The poor old chap is rather badly hurt, I’m afraid. Con-found this canoe! Why won’t the wretched thing go straight?”“It is because you don’t understand how to handle her, I expect,” replied I. “Do you know anything about the three men who took you ashore yesterday?”“No,” answered Cunningham. “Didn’t they return to the ship?”“They did not; and I am very much afraid that we shall never set eyes upon them again.”“Phew!” whistled Cunningham; “that’s bad news, although I’m not very greatly surprised to hear it after the way that the beggars ashore behaved—Hillo! what’s this? Why—I say, Temple, there’s a dead native floating about out here. What’s the meaning of that?”“It means that a determined attempt to capture the schooner was made, about two hours ago, and was very near being successful,” said I. “Do you mean to say that you did not hear the rumpus?”“Not a sound of it,” answered Cunningham. “But of course that may be accounted for by—but one can talk about that later. Just heave me a rope’s end, there’s a good chap, and— I say, how are we going to get the skipper up on deck? He’s rather badly hurt, and can’t manage without assistance, I’m afraid.”The canoe was by this time close aboard of us, and a few seconds later she was brought alongside with the aid of the line which I hove to Cunningham. Then I dropped lightly over the side into her, to see what could be done to help Brown, who all this time had remained perfectly silent. I found him propped up in the eyes of the little craft, and when I stooped over him I saw that his eyes were closed, as though he slept. But according to Cunningham it was not sleep, it was insensibility, resulting from a blow on the head with a heavy club. In any case the poor old fellow was obviously quite unable to help himself. I therefore took the rope’s end which I had thrown to Cunningham, made a standing bowline in the end of it, passed it under the skipper’s arms, and then sang out to those on deck to hoist away gently, while Cunningham and I helped by lifting. Thus presently we managed to get Brown first on deck and then down into his own stateroom, where Cunningham, who claimed to possess a certain amateurish skill and knowledge in medicine and surgery, at once took him in hand, while I returned to the deck and assisted the others in the task of straightening up generally.By the time we had finished the young dawn was paling the eastern sky, and the island, from being a mere shapeless black shadow, had changed to a deep neutral-tinted—almost black—silhouette, as clear and sharp of outline as though it had been cut out of paper, its equally dark reflection trembling on the surface of the water, and coming and going almost as far out as where the schooner lay at anchor. Then, even as I stood watching, the pallor brightened to a clear, pale tint of purest primrose, which presently flushed into a warm, delicate orange hue; a long shaft of white light shot straight up toward the zenith, and an instant later the topmast branches of the trees that crowned the island became edged with a thin hair-line of burning gold, which spread with marvellous rapidity north and south until every limb and trunk glowed with it. Finally a level beam of golden light flashed through a dense clump of foliage that crowned the highest point of the island, and the next instant that same clump became swallowed up and lost in a great, dazzling, palpitating blaze of golden light, which was the body of the rising sun; the colour of the island changed from neutral tint to deep sepia, and from that to innumerable subtle tones of olive and green, as the light grew stronger, and the masses of foliage separated themselves from each other and became distinct, until the shape of each became perfectly defined and took its proper place in the picture. And while these magical colour changes were in progress the deep shadow which marked the junction of land and water dissolved until the beach once more emerged into view, with the jollyboat still hauled up on it where she had been left on the previous day, and round about her, to left and right, eight big canoes, undoubtedly those which had been used in the attack upon the schooner a few hours earlier.While I still stood gazing, entranced, at the beauty of the new day, Cunningham emerged from the companion way and joined me.“Well,” he said, “you will be glad to hear that I think we shall pull the poor old skipper through, after all. I started to give him a thorough overhaul as soon as you left me; and I found that those murdering thieves of natives had literally cracked the poor old chap’s skull for him. I also found that a tiny splinter of bone had been driven inward upon the brain by the force of the blow; and this splinter I succeeded in extracting, with the result that he emerged from his state of coma, and, after I had properly dressed his wound, went to sleep.”

My first feeling was one of simple annoyance with the three men who constituted the boat’s crew, because they had permitted themselves to be cajoled into visiting the village and leaving the boat unprotected upon the beach, instead of returning to the ship immediately after landing the skipper, as I had instructed them to do. But when a full hour had elapsed, with no sign of the return of the truants, my annoyance began to give place to a feeling of rapidly growing anxiety; and when that hour grew to two, with still no sign of the absentees, my anxiety merged into a feeling of downright alarm—nay, more than alarm, into a conviction that something very serious had happened.

And now I found myself in an exceedingly awkward predicament; for while I felt that something ought to be done, I could not, for the life of me, decide what that something should be. Two alternatives suggested themselves, one being to arm all hands to the teeth, launch the gig, and go ashore to investigate; while the other was to remain aboard and prepare the schooner in every possible way to repel an attack, and at the same time to have everything ready for flight at a moment’s notice, if need be. The former was undoubtedly the proper thing to do, if one were to act upon the assumption that the natives had seized the white men who had landed, and were holding them as prisoners; but such an assumption was scarcely justified by the reputation which the Marquesas natives had earned for themselves, the story in circulation with regard to them being to the effect that it was their custom promptly to kill and eat any unfortunate whites who chanced to fall into their hands. If the six men who had been decoyed ashore that morning were already dead, nothing was to be gained by landing the remainder of theMartha’screw, except the infliction upon the natives of a sharp punishment—at a considerable amount of risk to ourselves of further loss in the pitched battle which would assuredly ensue.

Also there was the possibility—nay, more, the very strong probability—that while we were busily engaged on shore in the attempt to administer salutary chastisement for the betrayal of our shipmates, a party of natives might board the unprotected schooner, slip her cable, and run her ashore; and then where should we be, with no means of retreat excepting our boats, which would doubtless also be seized? If we could only get hold of a native and ascertain from him what had become of the absentees we should know what to do: for if the missing men were merely prisoners we should be fully justified in taking the risk of attempting to rescue them; but if, on the other hand, they were already dead, the question of punishment might very well be left until a more fitting moment. But now there was not a solitary native to be seen anywhere, which, in my opinion, was a decidedly bad sign.

The arrival of noon—by which hour the skipper fully expected to be back aboard the ship, but was not—found me still undecided upon the question of landing; but I had so far made up my mind that I had determined to arm all hands and put the schooner into as efficient a state of defence as possible. Accordingly I gave orders to have the arms and ammunition chests brought on deck, and instructed each man—there were only eight of us, all told, now—to arm himself with a cutlass and a brace of fully loaded revolvers, and also to have a loaded gun where he could put his hand upon it at a moment’s notice. Next I caused all fore-and-aft canvas to be loosed, all downhauls cast off, and all halyards ready for hoisting away at a moment’s notice; and when these orders had been duly executed it seemed to me that we had done everything that was possible.

Yet the schooner was still in a very defenceless condition, so far as resisting the simultaneous attack of several hundred determined natives was concerned: we might empty our firearms upon them, and if every shot told—which was most unlikely, in the excitement attendant upon an attack—we should kill or wound precisely fifty-six of them; after which the eight of us would be fighting, hand to hand, with the remainder, who would outnumber us by at least twenty to one, and probably twice that number! What chance would we have under such conditions as those? Absolutely none at all. If, now, it were possible to raise the schooner’s bulwarks, or to render them unclimbable in some way!

As I considered this the thought of the trawl net which the skipper had brought along for the purpose of dredging up the pearl-oysters occurred to me, and I instantly decided that it might, with a little ingenuity, be converted into an excellent boarding netting. It was made of extra stout hemp line, to resist the cutting action of the oyster shells over which it was proposed to be dragged, and also to bring up a good heavy load without bursting, and I at once recognised that if there was enough of it to trice up all round the schooner—and I believed there was—it might serve to keep the natives off our decks long enough to enable us to give them so severe a punishing as to cool their ardour effectually and ultimately beat them off. The idea was too good not to be utilised at once; and I gave instructions to have the net immediately routed out and brought on deck. It was a big, heavy affair, and it took the eight of us the best part of half an hour to clear it out of the sail-room and get it on deck; but when at length we had done so I at once saw that, with a certain amount of cutting and contriving, it might be made to serve its new purpose very excellently: and forthwith all hands of us fell upon it, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch had converted it into an exceedingly efficient boarding net. Then we triced it up, and felt that at last we were ready for whatever the fates—and the natives—might have in store for us.

Meanwhile the jollyboat still lay abandoned upon the beach, and no sign of her crew or of the skipper and his two companions had been seen; nor had the strictest scrutiny, with the aid of the ship’s telescope, revealed any indication of natives ashore: in fact, so far as appearances alone were concerned, the island might have been uninhabited. But the continued absence of our shipmates, now prolonged far beyond all reasonable limits, left no doubt in any of our minds that something very seriously wrong had happened to them; and but for the circumstance that we were in complete ignorance as to what that happening really was, and the hope that some of them at least might still be alive, I would at once have got the schooner under way and gone to sea. But to do that was impossible while their fate was still in doubt; for not even to ensure our own safety against the attack that we were all convinced was impending could we do that which would amount to the abandonment of possibly living white men to the mercy of the savages.

With the tricing up and securing of the boarding netting our preparations for the defence of the schooner were completed to the best of our ability; and now all that remained was for us to sit down and passively await events, which, in the present case, meant an attack by the savages at any moment after darkness had fallen sufficiently to conceal their movements. But, that we might be as fully prepared as possible, I gave instructions for the advancement of the supper hour, so that we might partake of that meal while there was still light enough to enable us to see our surroundings; and after that we busied ourselves about a general straightening up of the decks and the removal of all unnecessary hamper, in order that, if fight we must, we might at least fight with clear decks.

Fortunately for us the night fell fine and clear, with brilliant starlight which enabled us to see all round the ship for a distance of about a couple of hundred yards; but inshore of us the shadow of the island lay jet-black upon the surface of the water, completely hiding all evidence of movement in that direction, even when I attempted to probe the blackness with the night glass. Therefore we were obliged to trust quite as much to our ears as to our eyes for warning of the approach of an enemy; but even they did not help us much, for the island was but a small one, and the thunder of the surf upon its weather shore, borne to us with almost startling distinctness, mingled with the sough of the wind among the trees and the lap of the ripples alongside, making with these a combination of sound that effectually screened any such movement as the launching of a canoe or the distant dip of paddles. I foresaw that this was likely to be a wakeful night for me, for with such a heavy load of responsibility upon my young shoulders I could not possibly have slept, even upon a bed of down. I therefore instructed the men to bring their beds on deck and snatch such rest as might come to them, while I kept a lookout. Also I made a point of striking the ship’s bell regularly every half-hour, in the faint hope that if the savages could be brought to realise that we were upon the alert they might, after all, decide not to risk an attack.

With incredible slowness the laggard moments passed; the second dog-watch came to an end; and then, still more slowly, as it seemed to my impatience, first one, then two, three, four, and so on up to eight bells of the first watch were tolled out, and still there were no signs of the enemy. And all this while I was continuously padding round the decks in a pair of old felt-soled slippers, which effectually silenced my footsteps upon the planking, pausing for a moment at every half-dozen steps to peer anxiously but in vain into the shadow of the island for some indication of movement. Finally four bells of the middle watch arrived, and their passage was duly recorded by the strokes of the ship’s bell. Meanwhile the stress of the day’s anxiety, combined with my continuous and monotonous perambulation of the deck, and no doubt assisted by the soft coolness of the offshore breeze, laden with the odours of earth and vegetation, and the constant booming sound of the distant surf, was beginning to tell upon me; my jarred nerves had become steady, my breathing had become deep and regular, my limbs were growing weary, and my eyelids began occasionally to droop; in short, I was beginning to feel fatigued and in need of sleep.

This, then, was evidently the moment at which to attempt to snatch a little rest, and I was debating within myself which of the men I should call to relieve me, or rather which of them I could best trust to keep an alert lookout, when I fancied I caught, just for an instant out of the corner of my eye, a faint, silvery gleam, as of the phosphorescence of disturbed water, deep in the heart of the darkest shadow in the direction of the beach. I looked more closely, and presently saw again, this time quite distinctly, the rippling, moon-like gleam of water disturbed as it might be by the launching of a boat or a canoe. Yes, there was no mistake about it, there was undoubtedly a movement of some sort in there; and even as I came to this conclusion I saw the thing repeated twice, thrice, five or six times, with spaces of a few yards between. That was enough; at last the savages were on the move, and in a moment my fatigue fell from me like a garment, and I was once again the incarnation of alertness. Without making a sound I glided along the deck in my old soft slippers, and, laying my hand lightly upon each sleeper’s shoulder, murmured in his ear: “The enemy is under way! Go to your station as noiselessly as possible, taking your gun with you; and do not fire until I give the word.”

By the time that I had awakened my little band, and had seen each man at his proper station, it had become perfectly apparent that eight canoes were stealing slowly out toward us from the beach; for although they were still enveloped in deep shadow, and were being paddled so cautiously that not the faintest suspicion of a sound could be heard, it was possible for us to see distinctly, in the midst of the blackness, eight separate points of disturbance, each indicated by short, wavering lines of phosphorescent light, marking the slight ripple created by the gentle passage of some object through the water, in addition to which an occasional small luminous swirl indicated the stealthy dip of a paddle in the water at infrequent intervals. The excessive caution with which they were making their approach seemed to suggest an intention on the part of the savages to get as near as possible to the schooner unobserved, with probably a quick dash at the end to cover the last hundred feet or so of water.

Crouching low behind the bulwarks, and levelling the ship’s night glass over the rail, I kept the instrument slowly sweeping athwart the advancing line of craft, and at length saw eight large canoes gradually take shape as they drew imperceptibly out of the heart of the deepest shadow. I endeavoured to count the number of occupants, but soon found this to be impossible in the dim light. I made a rough guess, however, and came to the conclusion that there were at least twenty in each canoe; it was evident therefore that, despite our superiority in the matter of weapons, there was a desperate struggle in store for us. I waited patiently until the canoes had approached us near enough to enable us to distinguish the loom of them with the unaided eye, and then, springing up on the wheel grating, I suddenly hailed:

“Canoes ahoy! Keep off there! If you attempt to come any nearer I will open fire upon you.”

A complete cessation of paddling immediately followed my hail. Possibly the savages were a trifle chagrined to discover that we were on the alert, or perhaps they did not fully understand what I had said—although I did not believe that, for most of the South Sea natives knew enough of English to enable an Englishman to make himself understood. Be that as it may, they paused long enough to enable me to call to the little band of defenders a final instruction.

“Don’t fire, lads,” I said, “until you can see your mark distinctly. Then aim carefully, and make every shot tell. Much will depend upon the effect of our first volley, which we must therefore make as deadly as possible.”

A low murmur of comprehension arose from the scanty crew ranged at wide intervals along the schooner’s port rail, that being the side which the natives were approaching. But before anything more could be said, a loud shout—in a voice the tones of which seemed somehow familiar to me—arose from one of the canoes, and was instantly answered by a yell that, from its volume of sound, must have emanated from the throats of nearly or quite two hundred savages; and then, without further attempt at concealment, a whole host of paddles suddenly dashed into the water, lashing it into long, swirling lines of luminous foam, and, with loud cries of mutual encouragement from the occupants, the eight big canoes surged forward and came rushing through the water at the schooner.

“Keep cool, men,” I shouted above the din: “pick your mark; aim into the thick of them; and load and fire as many times as you can before they can get alongside.” And forthwith I led off with a shot aimed straight at the centre of the dark mass which represented the nearest canoe, at that moment distant about two hundred and fifty yards. My aim was true, and my bullet must have found a double mark, for two distinct shrieks responded a bare moment before a ragged volley of seven shots rang out from the rest of the defenders. More shrieks followed this discharge, but it did not stop the rush of the canoes, which now came sweeping toward us like so many steamers. Meanwhile I was busily engaged in slipping another cartridge into the breach of my piece, calculating upon being able to get in two more shots before the savages arrived alongside. And so, as a matter of fact, I did, as also did some of the others, with disastrous results for the savages, if the shrieks that followed upon each discharge were to be accepted as any criterion; and, apart from that, there was a noticeable wavering and hesitation on the part of the crews of two or three of the canoes after that third discharge. But the hesitation was only momentary; then the rascals gripped their courage afresh and drove their canoes alongside, four dashing up on our port side, and the remaining four essaying to board us to starboard. And when the canoes were within about four or five fathoms of the schooner’s side, with good way upon them, the savages suddenly laid in their paddles and, rising to their feet, hurled a heavy shower of spears at us, every one of which flew harmlessly over our heads, luckily for us.

Then the heavy night air suddenly became vibrant with a medley of harsh, discordant sounds, compounded of the yells and shrieks of the savages, the fierce ejaculations of our own people, the quick, snapping explosions of revolvers, and the gasping groans of the wounded, as the natives swarmed up our low sides and suddenly found themselves confronted by the barrier of our improvised boarding net, through the meshes of which our lads pointed their revolvers and thrust furiously with their cutlasses, while the savages unavailingly strove to tear the stout strands apart and make an opening through which to pass, or thrust at us in their turn with their spears. Suddenly, in the dim starlight, as I was busily reloading my revolver, I saw the cook emerge from the galley with what looked like a bucket in his hand. With a quick twirl he seemed to throw the contents of this bucket through the net just where the savages were crowding thickest on the other side of it, and the next instant there arose a more than usually piercing chorus of shrieks, while the great bulk of the savages at that particular point appeared to melt away suddenly, and I heard the heavy impact of a number of bodies falling headlong into the canoes alongside.

The “Doctor” paused a moment, apparently to note the effect of his experiment, and then he hastily returned to the galley, presently emerging again and repeating his former tactics with similar results. I subsequently learned that, when it became known that an attack of the savages might be certainly looked for, the cook had lighted a rousing fire in his galley, filled his coppers with a mixture of slush and salt water, and brought the whole to the boil, so arranging the matter that the mixture was in a state of furious ebullition by the time the savages arrived alongside. And wherever the blacks pressed thickest and most determinedly, there Cooky intervened with a bucketful of his scalding stuff, which he very effectively distributed over the naked bodies of a round dozen or so of our assailants by giving the bucket a neat twirl at the instant of discharge.

But despite the effective aid thus rendered, matters were, on the whole, going rather badly for us, for two American forecastle hands were by this time down, transfixed by spears which pinned them to the deck, while the sailmaker and I were each punctured and bleeding freely, Sails having received a bad prick in his left shoulder, while a spear had passed completely through the fleshy part of my right thigh; in addition to which a party of savages, by concentrating their efforts upon one particular spot, had contrived to make a hole in the net, which they were rapidly enlarging. Of this last fact I was happily unaware, as indeed I was of the critical character of our situation generally, for it was forward, where Murdock, the ex-boatswain of theZenobia, was in charge, that matters were going so badly, while aft, where I was, we were doing pretty well.

But Murdock was not the sort of man to be discouraged because for the moment he happened to be getting the worst of it; on the contrary, it was just that state of things that stirred him to extra effort, and it did so now. Perceiving that, unless something were done to prevent them effectively, the savages would soon force their way through the net—and thereafter make short work of all hands of us—Murdock sets his wits going, and presently thought out a plan which he immediately proceeded to put into operation. Seizing a half-empty case of revolver ammunition, he broke open about a dozen cartridges and arranged the powder in a little heap at the bottom of the case, burying one end of a length of extemporised fuse in the heap. Then he piled the cartridges on the top of the heap, placed the case on the windlass bitts, ignited the free end of the fuse, and rushed aft, yelling to us to throw ourselves flat upon our faces as he did so.

So urgent was his call that we all instinctively obeyed it; and there we lay for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, while the savages, seeing the weak point suddenly deserted, swarmed about it in greatly augmented numbers, finally enlarging the hole in the net to such an extent that at length it was big enough to permit the passage of a man, when one after another they began to force their way through. It was at this precise moment that the spark of the burning fuse reached the powder, which of course instantly blew up, igniting the hundred or so of cartridges that remained in the case, and scattering the bullets in them in all directions. There was a quick flash of the ignited powder, immediately followed by the cracker-like reports of the exploding cartridges, a horrible chorus of yells and shrieks of wounded men, and then—sudden, complete silence, for the space of perhaps half a dozen breaths. Then came renewed groans and outcries, as the injured men felt the first smart of their wounds, followed by a sudden wailing cry, and with one accord the panic-stricken savages flung themselves back into their canoes, seized their paddles, and headed for the shore in frantic haste, being presently sped upon their way by the bullets which we poured into their midst as long as they remained in sight.

Then, and not until then, we laid aside our weapons, mopped the perspiration and powder grime from our streaming brows, bound up each other’s wounds, and went forward to inspect the results of Murdock’s little experiment. It had been exceedingly effective, for scattered round the spot where the explosion had occurred we found no less than nineteen savages, of whom eleven were dead, five were more or less severely wounded, and three appeared to be only stunned. These three we promptly proceeded to bind hand and foot, during which operation we discovered that one of the trio was none other than friend Oahika, our “bumboat man in or’nary”, as the skipper had styled him. I was especially glad that this particular rascal had fallen into our hands, for during the progress of the fight I had frequently caught sight of him, by the light afforded by the flash of our revolvers, and had noticed that he was taking an exceptionally prominent part in the proceedings; while one or two circumstances which I had also noticed led me to suspect that he might possibly be a person of some importance among the natives of Roua Poua.

And now, as with the assistance of three lanterns we proceeded with our investigations, the really desperate character of the struggle in which we had so recently been engaged began to be borne in upon us; for, in addition to the nineteen who had fallen victims to the boatswain’s contrivance, we found scattered about the ship twenty-six dead, and thirty-three more or less wounded natives; while others—with whom the sharks were already busy—were floating in the water near the ship. As for ourselves, we had lost two foremast hands, both of them Americans, while the remainder of us, with the solitary exception of the cook, had each his scratch to show, my own and the sailmaker’s being, fortunately, the only wounds that could be reasonably termed serious, while even they were of comparatively little moment, provided that gangrene did not supervene.

And now, the natives having been beaten off, our next task was to straighten up after the fight, and a beginning was made by throwing all the dead—except our own two—overboard, where the sharks might be safely trusted to see to their speedy disposal. Then we overhauled the wounded savages: and such of them as had received only trifling hurts, and might therefore perhaps yet give us trouble if we were not careful, we bound securely; while the others we laid out on deck, and then proceeded to doctor up as well as our means and our very limited surgical knowledge permitted.

It was while we were all thus busily engaged that the boatswain, happening to straighten his back for a moment and cast an alert glance across the water toward the shore, suddenly stood rigid and staring, and then remarked to me, in a low tone of voice:

“Just look over there for a minute, Mr Temple. Ain’t that a canoe or somethin’ headin’ this way?”

I looked in the direction indicated, and at once sighted a small, shapeless blot of deeper blackness in the shadow that enshrouded the whole of the west side of the island. But if it was a canoe it was certainly a very small craft; moreover, it was not coming from the direction of the beach, but from a point apparently about a mile to the north of it. We stood watching it for a full minute, or more, and then I caught the now familiar phosphorescent gleam of water which indicated the presence of a moving object.

“Yes,” I said, “it certainly is a canoe, Murdock; but she seems to be only a very small affair, such as need give us no very serious amount of anxiety. We will keep an eye upon her for a minute or two and see what she is after. Perhaps it is a messenger from the natives coming off to treat with us for the surrender of the wounded. I hope it may be, because then we shall perhaps learn what has become of the skipper and the rest of the missing men.”

As the canoe continued to approach, we observed a certain eccentricity in her behaviour, for instead of progressing in a straight line her course was a decidedzigzag, now heading one way and now another, to the extent of about four points of the compass; still it looked as though she was aiming for the schooner, for her general direction of approach was toward us. I procured the night glass and brought it to bear upon her, and was then able to distinguish that she was indeed an exceedingly diminutive craft, containing only one figure, who seemed to be sitting in her stern, and was paddling somewhat awkwardly, first on one side of her and then on the other, which probably accounted for her eccentricity of movement. Furthermore, as I continued to watch, a certain suggestion of familiarity grew upon me in connection with the appearance and actions of the paddling figure; and finally, when the canoe had approached to within about a hundred fathoms of the schooner, I put down the glass and hailed:

“Canoe ahoy! what canoe is that?”

“Hillo! is that you, Temple?” came the reply in Cunningham’s well-known voice.

“Ay, ay,” I replied, “it is I, right enough. And glad I am to see that you are all right. Do you happen to know anything about the skipper?”

“Got him here, in the bottom of the canoe,” was the reply. “The poor old chap is rather badly hurt, I’m afraid. Con-found this canoe! Why won’t the wretched thing go straight?”

“It is because you don’t understand how to handle her, I expect,” replied I. “Do you know anything about the three men who took you ashore yesterday?”

“No,” answered Cunningham. “Didn’t they return to the ship?”

“They did not; and I am very much afraid that we shall never set eyes upon them again.”

“Phew!” whistled Cunningham; “that’s bad news, although I’m not very greatly surprised to hear it after the way that the beggars ashore behaved—Hillo! what’s this? Why—I say, Temple, there’s a dead native floating about out here. What’s the meaning of that?”

“It means that a determined attempt to capture the schooner was made, about two hours ago, and was very near being successful,” said I. “Do you mean to say that you did not hear the rumpus?”

“Not a sound of it,” answered Cunningham. “But of course that may be accounted for by—but one can talk about that later. Just heave me a rope’s end, there’s a good chap, and— I say, how are we going to get the skipper up on deck? He’s rather badly hurt, and can’t manage without assistance, I’m afraid.”

The canoe was by this time close aboard of us, and a few seconds later she was brought alongside with the aid of the line which I hove to Cunningham. Then I dropped lightly over the side into her, to see what could be done to help Brown, who all this time had remained perfectly silent. I found him propped up in the eyes of the little craft, and when I stooped over him I saw that his eyes were closed, as though he slept. But according to Cunningham it was not sleep, it was insensibility, resulting from a blow on the head with a heavy club. In any case the poor old fellow was obviously quite unable to help himself. I therefore took the rope’s end which I had thrown to Cunningham, made a standing bowline in the end of it, passed it under the skipper’s arms, and then sang out to those on deck to hoist away gently, while Cunningham and I helped by lifting. Thus presently we managed to get Brown first on deck and then down into his own stateroom, where Cunningham, who claimed to possess a certain amateurish skill and knowledge in medicine and surgery, at once took him in hand, while I returned to the deck and assisted the others in the task of straightening up generally.

By the time we had finished the young dawn was paling the eastern sky, and the island, from being a mere shapeless black shadow, had changed to a deep neutral-tinted—almost black—silhouette, as clear and sharp of outline as though it had been cut out of paper, its equally dark reflection trembling on the surface of the water, and coming and going almost as far out as where the schooner lay at anchor. Then, even as I stood watching, the pallor brightened to a clear, pale tint of purest primrose, which presently flushed into a warm, delicate orange hue; a long shaft of white light shot straight up toward the zenith, and an instant later the topmast branches of the trees that crowned the island became edged with a thin hair-line of burning gold, which spread with marvellous rapidity north and south until every limb and trunk glowed with it. Finally a level beam of golden light flashed through a dense clump of foliage that crowned the highest point of the island, and the next instant that same clump became swallowed up and lost in a great, dazzling, palpitating blaze of golden light, which was the body of the rising sun; the colour of the island changed from neutral tint to deep sepia, and from that to innumerable subtle tones of olive and green, as the light grew stronger, and the masses of foliage separated themselves from each other and became distinct, until the shape of each became perfectly defined and took its proper place in the picture. And while these magical colour changes were in progress the deep shadow which marked the junction of land and water dissolved until the beach once more emerged into view, with the jollyboat still hauled up on it where she had been left on the previous day, and round about her, to left and right, eight big canoes, undoubtedly those which had been used in the attack upon the schooner a few hours earlier.

While I still stood gazing, entranced, at the beauty of the new day, Cunningham emerged from the companion way and joined me.

“Well,” he said, “you will be glad to hear that I think we shall pull the poor old skipper through, after all. I started to give him a thorough overhaul as soon as you left me; and I found that those murdering thieves of natives had literally cracked the poor old chap’s skull for him. I also found that a tiny splinter of bone had been driven inward upon the brain by the force of the blow; and this splinter I succeeded in extracting, with the result that he emerged from his state of coma, and, after I had properly dressed his wound, went to sleep.”

Chapter Ten.We lose the Skipper.“I am delighted to hear it,” I said, “for we have paid dearly enough already for our folly in coming to this island, without being called upon to pay the additional penalty of that poor old chap’s life. We have lost two of our number in the attack upon the ship, while the three hands who took you ashore yesterday are missing—and, by the by, where is Maybury?”“Dead, poor chap, I am sorry to say—murdered by those treacherous scoundrels of natives,” answered Cunningham. “The way of it was this. When we landed we were immediately surrounded by a mob of blacks; and just for a moment I had a shadowy suspicion that things were not quite all that they ought to be. But as I looked round I saw that the natives were all unarmed; and, moreover, they were all smiling and apparently in the best of tempers—indeed, one of them, a girl, flung a garland of flowers round my neck, either as a joke or a sign of goodwill, I didn’t quite know which—so I took it for granted that they were friendly disposed, and we all got laughing and joking together. Then the skipper, Maybury, and I gradually worked our way through the crowd, and, accompanied by the men who had wood to sell, walked up through the village, which seemed to be inhabited chiefly by naked little piccaninnies, playing in the sand with the dogs, and women.“The village is about a quarter of a mile in length, and beyond it there are about twenty acres of cleared ground, planted with manioc, cassava, corn, and fruit trees—principally bananas, beyond which is the virgin forest. Toward this we made our way, and, entering it, followed a bush path for about a quarter of a mile, until we reached a small open space. We had scarcely entered this when the three pretended sandalwood merchants simultaneously turned upon us, and, uttering a terrific yell, seized each of us by the arms, which they tried to confine behind our backs. Taken unawares though I was, I struggled fiercely to throw off my particular assailant, but the beggar was a big sinewy chap, with muscles like steel, and ere I could wrench myself clear about a dozen other blacks sprang into the enclosure, evidently in response to the shout raised by our captors; and before I well knew what was happening I found myself upon the ground, with three or four savages sitting upon me, while others were binding me hand and foot. While I was still struggling I heard the pop of a revolver twice, the reports being so close together that I knew at once they must have come from different weapons; and the next instant I heard a dull crack, a groan, and the fall of two heavy bodies upon the dry leaves and twigs which carpeted the floor of the open space where the struggle had taken place. Then, when my captors had effectually secured my limbs, they raised me to my feet, and I saw the skipper lying, face downward, about a yard away, with his head bare, a small stream of blood trickling from it and clotting among his grey hair; while close to him lay Maybury on his back, quite dead, with a long spear driven right through his heart.“The blacks turned the skipper over, examined him closely, and then, finding that he was not dead, held some sort of consultation in their own language, the purport of which of course I could not gather; but the end of it was that they hoisted both of us upon their shoulders, carried us back to the village, and thrust us into one of the huts, where we lay untended for the remainder of the day and practically the whole of last night. Then some time—about the small hours I think it must have been—a girl, who proved to be the same who had flung the garland of flowers round my neck, stole into the hut as silently as a ghost, laid her finger upon my lips—to indicate, I suppose, that I was not to talk—and deftly proceeded to cast adrift my bonds; after which she proceeded vigorously to chafe my ankles and wrists, in order to restore the circulation, which had been practically suspended by the tightness with which the ligatures had been bound. And look here, Temple, if you should ever chance to have an enemy, and have a fancy to torture him, just bind his wrists and ankles tightly together and leave him for a few hours—that’s all!“Well, when the feeling had come back into my limbs a bit, and I could move them without screaming, the girl produced some food and drink, and, although I don’t in the least know what they were, I ate and drank freely. Then, in the curious ‘pidgin’ lingo that these people use when conversing with white men, the girl gave me to understand that my life and that of the skipper was in the greatest jeopardy, and that if I did not want particularly to die I must buck up and save myself and the skipper. Then, taking command, she bade me lift the old man by the shoulders while she took his feet; and in this fashion we slipped out of the hut, seeing nobody, and made our way slowly through the wood until we emerged upon a little beach just on the other side of that headland. Then she drew out from among the bushes a small canoe, in the bottom of which she helped me to place the skipper; after which, with a warning to me to be exceedingly careful and to make no noise, she handed me a paddle, thrust the canoe afloat, and vanished. And—and—well, that’s all! And now you may as well pitch me the yarn of your share of the night’s doings. If one may venture to judge by appearances you seem to have had a fairly lively time out here.”“We have, I can assure you,” said I; and then I proceeded to give Cunningham a detailed account of all that had happened during the absence of himself and the skipper. I had scarcely finished when the cabin boy came up with the intimation that breakfast was ready in the cabin, and we accordingly went below, seated ourselves, and fell to. We did not dally long over the meal, for there was still plenty to be done and thought about; but before returning to the deck I remarked to Cunningham that I should like to look in and see how the skipper was getting on, and we both entered the stateroom together. To my surprise we found that the old chap was awake and seemingly feeling not very much the worse for the hard knock on the head which he had received; indeed, he wanted to turn out and dress and go on deck. But Cunningham, who had assumed the rôle of surgeon, would not hear of such a thing—would not even permit Brown to leave his bunk; so, as a compromise, I just had to sit down and spin the whole yarn of our adventure over again to him. The poor old fellow seemed very much cut up when he learned that we had lost six men—all of them compatriots of his, too—and bitterly reproached himself for having come to the island at all. Of course we comforted him as well as we could by pointing out to him that the happening was due not so much to want of precaution on his part as to the exceeding guile of the natives; and then I led the conversation round to the prisoners, and asked what he proposed to do with them. Cunningham was for taking the law into our own hands and inflicting upon them a salutary lesson by hanging one of them at the yardarm for each of our people who had been murdered; but Brown would not hear of this, and we were all three still discussing the matter when the cabin boy came down with a message from Murdock to say that a large canoe had just been launched from the beach and was heading for the schooner, and would I be pleased to go on deck.Of course I instantly obeyed the call, for my first idea was that another attack was possibly impending; but when I got on deck I found that the canoe, although a large one, was manned by only four natives, who were approaching us very slowly, and apparently with a considerable amount of trepidation, and that a large palm-leaf was conspicuously displayed in the bows of the craft, the latter being, as I interpreted it, intended to serve the purpose of a flag of truce. Naturally we at once assumed our weapons, and saw that our firearms were fully loaded and placed handy for use, lest further treachery should be contemplated; and then I hailed the canoe and informed her occupants that if they had anything to say to us they might approach within easy speaking distance, but that they were not to attempt to come alongside without permission, and that if any such attempt were made they would at once be fired upon. And that there might be no misunderstanding upon this point I flourished a loaded gun in their sight, to show that we were quite prepared to carry out our threat.Slowly and hesitatingly the canoe continued to approach the schooner until she had arrived within about twenty fathoms of us, and then her crew backed water and brought their craft to a standstill. A short consultation among them next followed, and then one of their number rose to his feet and hailed.“Master,” he shouted, “we got it three mans ashore belong you. You any mans got it belong we?”“Yes,” replied I. “We have eight of your people on board here. Are the white men unhurt?”“No,” was the answer. “They all get it hurt leettle bit, not much. Black mans along you not hurt, eh?”“Three of them are unhurt; the others are wounded so they no can walk. What for you not bring it off those white mans with you?” I demanded, adopting their peculiar mode of speech under the mistaken impression that I could thus make myself the better understood.“Those white mans no can walk too,” answered my interlocutor. “Suppose you want it them, we bring them off, and you give it us those eight black fellows belong we, eh?”So it was an exchange of prisoners that they had come off to negotiate, it appeared. Well, I was more than willing to make the exchange, but I did not care to appear too eager; so I temporised by enquiring as to the nature and extent of the white men’s hurts. But they either could not or would not reply in a manner that was perfectly intelligible to me, and matters seemed to be approaching a deadlock when one of the canoe men started to his feet, and in an eager, impatient manner, asked:“Master, suppose you no got it Oahika aboard, eh?” which enquiry went a good way toward confirming my opinion that the rascal was a person of some importance.“Yes,” I replied, “we got it Oahika, all right, not hurt one little bit.” Then, with some vague idea of trying the effect of a “bluff”, I continued: “He great blackguard scoundrel! He attack schooner last night, kill it two white mans! By and by we hang Oahika up there until he go dead!” and I pointed to the schooner’s lower yardarm.A yell of anguish immediately followed this announcement of mine, fully confirming me in the belief that Oahika was likely to prove a valuable asset if properly manipulated. The next moment, however, one of the men jumped up and shouted:“Mine no believe you got it Oahika. Suppose yes, you show it him, eh?”“Murdock, Simpson,” I shouted, “just hoist that swab Oahika up on his feet and take him to the rail, so that those fellows in the canoe may see him.”This was done; and the moment that the fellow’s head and shoulders appeared above the top of the schooner’s low bulwark another loud howl arose from the crew of the canoe, who incontinently flung themselves down on their knees and began to kow-tow energetically. But they were quickly interrupted by Oahika, who shouted angrily at them, and then, as soon as he had secured their attention, proceeded to gabble to them a long string of what seemed to be instructions, in a language quite unintelligible to me. When he had finished, the occupants of the canoe waved their hands, as if to indicate that they understood, then seized their paddles and began to sweep the canoe’s head round toward the shore. This sudden change of front rather puzzled me. I did not quite know what to make of it; it might mean anything, I thought, and among other things it might mean that Oahika had given instructions to muster every available fighting man in the village—or the island—and renew the attack upon the schooner. So I hailed the hastily departing canoe:“Hillo, there, canoe ahoy! Where are you going, and what are you about to do?”The men ceased paddling for a moment, and one of them flourished his hand toward the island.“We get it back along ashore plenty quick and bring it them three mans belong you. Then you give it us Oahika, eh?” he announced.“You bring the three white mans, and then we’ll see,” I retorted. “And—listen you—if you bring any more of your own men with you I shall shoot Oahika dead! Sabby?”This threat, uttered upon the spur of the moment, seemed to disconcert them very decidedly, for they remained inactive, staring each other in the face. It also seemed to disconcert Oahika; for no sooner had I finished speaking than he began to shout a long string of further directions, to which the canoe men replied from time to time by waving their hands. Finally Oahika brought his communication to an end with a few words which, from the intonation of his voice, might have been an injunction to the men to hurry up; and away the canoe sped toward the shore.As soon as it had gone I went down below and reported to the skipper, who now seemed to be not quite so well as he had been half an hour earlier. He was, naturally, very pleased to learn that the three men whom we had all believed to be dead were still alive; and he instructed me to make the best terms I could for their ransom, and, as soon as I had secured possession of them and the boat, to get the schooner under way and proceed to sea without further delay.The canoe had been gone about three-quarters of an hour when, watching the shore through the ship’s telescope, I perceived a slight stir upon the beach, and presently became aware that a small party of natives had gathered about the jollyboat, which they pushed off from the beach, making fast her painter to the stern of the canoe. Then other natives appeared, bearing in grass hammocks the three missing seamen, who were laid in the sternsheets of the jollyboat; and finally the canoe was manned, apparently by the same four natives who had previously come off in her, and headed for the schooner, whereupon I gave orders for the windlass to be manned and the cable to be hove short, all ready for tripping the anchor at a moment’s notice. This was done; and by the time the canoe was once more within hailing distance the cable was so taut up and down that a single additional revolution of the windlass barrel would break out the anchor and free us from the ground.And now came the really difficult part of my negotiation with the savages; for, being themselves superlatively unscrupulous and deceitful, they naturally suspected us of being the same, and would not come alongside, or render up possession of the jollyboat and the three wounded seamen whom she carried, until we on our part had released Oahika. And this I flatly refused to do, feeling that, as likely as not, they would play us some scurvy trick as soon as they had recovered possession of the man who, I now very strongly suspected, was the paramount chief of the island, or, if not that, at least a chief of very considerable importance. We argued, stipulated, and made counter stipulations, all to no purpose, and finally once more arrived at a deadlock. Of course I might very easily have settled the matter by shooting the four natives in the canoe; but that would have been an act of the very blackest treachery, and I was strongly of opinion that it was just such treacherous conduct on the part of certain unscrupulous white men that had made the natives of some of the Polynesian islands the cruel, treacherous wretches that they had become.I therefore once more resorted to “bluff”, by hailing them and saying that unless they came alongside at once and surrendered possession of the boat and those in her, I would get the schooner under way and proceed to sea, taking Oahika and the rest of our prisoners with me; and to make my threat the more effective I turned away and gave the order to man the windlass. This was enough; with the first clank of the windlass pawls, Oahika, who had thus far taken no part in our second palaver, let out a yell at the men in the canoe which caused them to surrender instantly at discretion and rush their craft up alongside the schooner.And now I determined upon a bold thing. These Roua Poua savages had caused us a vast amount of trouble and loss; through them we were short-handed to the extent of no less than six men; and I felt that for the sake of my own satisfaction and self-respect I must get something, though it were ever so little, back out of them. Therefore, since we white men were all armed, and therefore in a position to take good care of ourselves, as soon as the tackles were hooked into the jollyboat’s ringbolts I ordered the four savages in the canoe to leave her and come on deck to help to hoist in the boat; and this they did in a state of the most abject fear and trembling. Then I sent them for’ard to the windlass to assist in breaking out the anchor; and it was not until the schooner was actually adrift that I permitted them to begin the transfer of their wounded from theMartha’sdeck to the canoe. They displayed remarkably little consideration for the comfort and wellbeing of their comrades in the performance of this duty; and indeed I have always been of opinion that had I been foolish enough to liberate Oahika before the others had been transhipped, he and his canoemen would have incontinently made off at top speed for the shore, leaving the others, sound and wounded alike, upon our hands and at our mercy. But I was careful to keep Oahika until the last, and it was not until the schooner was fairly under way and heading out to sea that I cast him adrift and permitted him to go over the side, which he did in a splutter of mingled wrath and fear, pouring out a long string of what were probably native curses as he seized the steering paddle and violently thrust the canoe off the schooner’s side.By midday we were bowling merrily away to the westward under every rag that we could set, and Roua Poua had sunk out of sight beneath the eastern horizon. Long before this, however—in fact, the moment that they were safely aboard and comfortably bestowed in their bunks—Cunningham had taken the three wounded seamen in hand; and when he had done all that he could for them he came up on deck and reported to me.“I am afraid,” he said, “that there is not much hope for those three,” with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the forecastle. “Sullivan and Halpin have had their skulls cracked by blows inflicted with a war club, and their cases are very similar to that of the skipper, but worse; while poor Glenn has no less than eleven spear wounds in his body, and though none of them is very serious in itself this heat makes me terribly afraid of gangrene. However, I have done all that I can for them at present, and we must just hope for the best. Glenn tells me that after the skipper and I had left them the natives came swarming round them, exciting their curiosity by exhibiting curios of various kinds for sale, or barter, rather, at ridiculously cheap prices, and so enticing them away from the beach toward the village, where, they were informed, some really valuable articles might be seen. And then, when they arrived at the village, they were suddenly set upon before they had time to draw their weapons, overpowered, and confined in a hut, where they were left all day yesterday and all last night without food or water, and with their injuries untended. I am afraid there is not much hope for them, poor fellows!”This was bad news—so very bad, indeed, that I felt it my duty to go forthwith to the skipper, report the matter to him, and ask for instructions; my own idea being that we ought to head for the Samoa or Tonga group, and procure properly qualified medical assistance with as little delay as possible.But when I got down below and began to talk to the Old Man I soon found that he was, for some inscrutable reason, utterly opposed to any such idea. He would not give his reasons, but he positively forbade me to do as I had suggested, instructing me instead to work out a Great Circle track to Canton, and to get the ship upon her proper course at once. And as he seemed to be in full possession of all his faculties, and to know quite well what he was talking about, I had no alternative but to obey. And indeed, so far as saving the three men in the forecastle was concerned, we might as well have been heading for Canton as anywhere else; for Halpin and Glenn died within a couple of hours of each other that same night, while Sullivan lingered only some twenty-six hours longer.I looked forward to a speedy and pleasant run to Canton, for I reckoned upon carrying the Trades with us practically all the way. But we were unfortunate; for after a fine run of nine days to the northward and westward we ran into the belt of equatorial calms in latitude 4 degrees South, and for fully three weeks thereafter encountered such extraordinary weather that we dared not ship our fins, from fear of having them carried away, or of badly straining the schooner. For instead of the long spell of calms which one usually expects in those latitudes the quiet weather generally lasted but an hour or two, and then was succeeded by such furious squalls that, for the most part, we could do nothing but run before them under bare poles; and perhaps the most exasperating part of it all was that these squalls blew mostly from the westward, or nearly dead in our teeth, so that it was only toward the tail end of them, just when they were dying out, that we were able to bring the little hooker to the wind for half an hour or so, and make a few miles of northing. And when it was not blowing with hurricane strength it was usually just the opposite: a flat calm, with a black, lowering, overcast sky, moist, steamy, overpowering heat, heavy storms of thunder and lightning, torrential downpours of tepid rain—which, by the way, enabled us to re-fill all our water tanks and casks—and waterspoutsad libitumconstantly threatening us with destruction.It was a month, to a day, from the date of our departure from Roua Poua when we at length cleared the calm belt and got the first breath of the north-east Trades in latitude 3 degrees 47 minutes North, and longitude 158 degrees 55 minutes West, having been driven back almost as far east as Christmas Island by the baffling winds and furious squalls with which we had been obliged to contend; and this brought the dangerous Marshall group right athwart our track. Therefore, the poor old skipper being still unwell, and quite unfit for duty, I decided to make a good stretch to the northward—say as far as latitude 10 degrees North—before bearing up for Canton; by doing which I should have a clear sea before me for the remainder of the trip.I have spoken of the skipper as being unwell and quite unfit for duty; but that scarcely conveys a correct impression of his condition. The fact was that he was well enough to be up and about on deck, but he was constantly worried with headache of the most distracting kind, and, what was still worse, his intellect seemed to be failing him: he suffered from frequent total lapses of memory, stopping short in the midst of a conversation simply because he forgot in a moment what he was talking about; and he was subject, from time to time, to hallucinations, when he would assure us, with the utmost gravity, that he was the King of England taking a holiday “incognito”, the re-incarnation of Morgan the pirate, or something else equally ridiculous, while at other times he would be perfectly rational. For the first two or three weeks, while these symptoms were in process of development, he caused Cunningham and me a very considerable amount of anxiety, for we were constantly dreading some new departure which would render him dangerous either to himself or to others; but at length, as we were unable to detect any such tendency, we grew easier in our minds, just allowing him to wander about the ship at his own sweet will, and amuse himself by giving the most extraordinary orders, which nobody ever even pretended to carry out. We came to the conclusion that he was suffering from some obscure form of concussion of the brain, from which we hoped he might be relieved upon our arrival at Hong-Kong, where we expected to obtain efficient surgical assistance; but that, meanwhile, he was in no very serious danger. As the event proved, however, we were all woefully mistaken. We had made as much northing as I deemed necessary, and were bowling along upon a west-nor’-west course, reeling off our ten knots per hour, with all our flying kites abroad and a fine north-east breeze over our starboard quarter, when, about four bells in the first; watch, the skipper came up on deck complaining that he found it impossible to sleep in consequence of the extreme heat of his cabin. The night was brilliantly starlit, and the air so clear that we could have easily distinguished a sail at a distance of two miles, had there been owe to see; but the light was not strong enough to enable me clearly to distinguish Brown’s features, even when he was standing beside me, while the cabin lamp was turned low, so that there was not much light coming through the skylight. But when the old fellow fell into step by my side, and began to talk quite rationally about the heat below, the impossibility of sleeping, and his gratification at the fine breeze which we had fallen in with, and so on, I was completely thrown off my guard; for he appeared to be in precisely the condition that I had often previously seen him in, when he had talked rationally enough for a time, taken a little walk—as he was doing at that moment—and then, suddenly forgetting what he was conversing about, gone below and slept for several hours.All at once, as we were walking to and fro between the main rigging and the wheel grating, the old fellow halted, pulled off his cap, extracted a big bandana handkerchief from it, and proceeded to mop his head and face, from which—as in my own case—the perspiration was freely pouring.“Great snakes,” he ejaculated, “but it is hot, and no mistake! The sweat’s pourin’ out o’ me like water outen a sponge. I guess that’s what’s makin’ me so all-fired thirsty. Where’s the water cask? I’m boun’ to have a drink. My tongue’s so dry it’s rattlin’ agin my teeth! Can’t ye hear it? Where’s that there scuttle butt, I say?”“Better not drink direct from the cask, sir,” I said, for Cunningham had strongly urged us all to drink nothing but filtered water, and even that with a dash of lime juice in it, during the extreme heat. “The filter stands on the sideboard, and there is an opened bottle of lime juice in the rack above it; you will find that very much cooler and more refreshing than the water from the scuttle butt. That stuff is really not fit to drink.”“But I’m so tarnation thirsty that I must have a drink,” he insisted, “and I’d rather drink outer the cask than go below. Why, man alive, that there cabin is like a oven!”“Oh,” said I, glancing hastily round and noting that the weather seemed fine and settled, “if that is all I’ll very soon slip down and fetch you up a drink! Bring yourself to an anchor here on the wheel grating, sir, while I go below. I’ll be back in a brace of shakes. Just keep your eye on him, Chips,” I whispered to the carpenter, who was at the wheel. “I’ll not be gone more than half a minute.”“Right you are, sir,” responded the carpenter, turning his quid in his mouth as the skipper obediently seated himself on the wheel grating, while I made a rush for the companion. I turned up the cabin lamp, procured a tumbler, and was in the act of measuring out a liberal dose of lime juice when I heard the carpenter’s voice suddenly upraised in accents of panic.“Man overboard! Man overboard!!” he shouted. “Mr Temple, come on deck, sir; the skipper’s been and throwed hisself over the lee rail!”Flinging down the tumbler and bottle of lime juice, I mounted the companion ladder in two jumps, nearly dashing my brains out against the slide in my haste, and stared stupidly about me for a moment, being more than half-stunned. Then, as I pulled myself together, I heard Chips repeating, parrot-wise:“He just laid his han’s upon the rail and swung hisself clean overboard, like a boy jumpin’ a gate.”“Down helm, man; down helm and round her to!” I roared. And rushing to the main rigging I let go the lee braces and began to drag frantically upon the weather ones in an ineffectual effort to back the topsail. Then I remembered that the weather studdingsails were set, being reminded thereof, in fact, by the snapping of the topmast studdingsail-boom, as the schooner, with her helm hard a-lee, rushed furiously up into the wind, and her topgallantsail, topsail, and squaresail flew aback, and the broken spar began to thresh spitefully against the fore rigging in the fresh breeze. I saw at once that I had made a mess of things to no purpose, and also stood to make a far worse mess of them if I was not careful; for the amount of sail which the schooner could carry while running off the wind was altogether too much for her when brought to, and she was now lying over with her lee rail buried, with the possibility that her masts might go over the side at any moment if she were not relieved in one way or another. As for saving the skipper, that was impossible: for—as I had forgotten for the moment—we were now, owing to the loss of six of our foremast men, short-handed, and we could not possibly launch a boat until the schooner was snugged down; and by the time we had done that we should be miles away from the spot where the skipper had gone overboard, without any certain, definite knowledge as to the precise direction in which to look for him. Therefore, all these circumstances coming to my mind in a flash, I jumped to the wheel and helped Chips to put it hard up again, luckily managing to get the little hooker before the wind once more with no further damage than the loss of a studdingsail-boom and the splitting of the lower studdingsail.

“I am delighted to hear it,” I said, “for we have paid dearly enough already for our folly in coming to this island, without being called upon to pay the additional penalty of that poor old chap’s life. We have lost two of our number in the attack upon the ship, while the three hands who took you ashore yesterday are missing—and, by the by, where is Maybury?”

“Dead, poor chap, I am sorry to say—murdered by those treacherous scoundrels of natives,” answered Cunningham. “The way of it was this. When we landed we were immediately surrounded by a mob of blacks; and just for a moment I had a shadowy suspicion that things were not quite all that they ought to be. But as I looked round I saw that the natives were all unarmed; and, moreover, they were all smiling and apparently in the best of tempers—indeed, one of them, a girl, flung a garland of flowers round my neck, either as a joke or a sign of goodwill, I didn’t quite know which—so I took it for granted that they were friendly disposed, and we all got laughing and joking together. Then the skipper, Maybury, and I gradually worked our way through the crowd, and, accompanied by the men who had wood to sell, walked up through the village, which seemed to be inhabited chiefly by naked little piccaninnies, playing in the sand with the dogs, and women.

“The village is about a quarter of a mile in length, and beyond it there are about twenty acres of cleared ground, planted with manioc, cassava, corn, and fruit trees—principally bananas, beyond which is the virgin forest. Toward this we made our way, and, entering it, followed a bush path for about a quarter of a mile, until we reached a small open space. We had scarcely entered this when the three pretended sandalwood merchants simultaneously turned upon us, and, uttering a terrific yell, seized each of us by the arms, which they tried to confine behind our backs. Taken unawares though I was, I struggled fiercely to throw off my particular assailant, but the beggar was a big sinewy chap, with muscles like steel, and ere I could wrench myself clear about a dozen other blacks sprang into the enclosure, evidently in response to the shout raised by our captors; and before I well knew what was happening I found myself upon the ground, with three or four savages sitting upon me, while others were binding me hand and foot. While I was still struggling I heard the pop of a revolver twice, the reports being so close together that I knew at once they must have come from different weapons; and the next instant I heard a dull crack, a groan, and the fall of two heavy bodies upon the dry leaves and twigs which carpeted the floor of the open space where the struggle had taken place. Then, when my captors had effectually secured my limbs, they raised me to my feet, and I saw the skipper lying, face downward, about a yard away, with his head bare, a small stream of blood trickling from it and clotting among his grey hair; while close to him lay Maybury on his back, quite dead, with a long spear driven right through his heart.

“The blacks turned the skipper over, examined him closely, and then, finding that he was not dead, held some sort of consultation in their own language, the purport of which of course I could not gather; but the end of it was that they hoisted both of us upon their shoulders, carried us back to the village, and thrust us into one of the huts, where we lay untended for the remainder of the day and practically the whole of last night. Then some time—about the small hours I think it must have been—a girl, who proved to be the same who had flung the garland of flowers round my neck, stole into the hut as silently as a ghost, laid her finger upon my lips—to indicate, I suppose, that I was not to talk—and deftly proceeded to cast adrift my bonds; after which she proceeded vigorously to chafe my ankles and wrists, in order to restore the circulation, which had been practically suspended by the tightness with which the ligatures had been bound. And look here, Temple, if you should ever chance to have an enemy, and have a fancy to torture him, just bind his wrists and ankles tightly together and leave him for a few hours—that’s all!

“Well, when the feeling had come back into my limbs a bit, and I could move them without screaming, the girl produced some food and drink, and, although I don’t in the least know what they were, I ate and drank freely. Then, in the curious ‘pidgin’ lingo that these people use when conversing with white men, the girl gave me to understand that my life and that of the skipper was in the greatest jeopardy, and that if I did not want particularly to die I must buck up and save myself and the skipper. Then, taking command, she bade me lift the old man by the shoulders while she took his feet; and in this fashion we slipped out of the hut, seeing nobody, and made our way slowly through the wood until we emerged upon a little beach just on the other side of that headland. Then she drew out from among the bushes a small canoe, in the bottom of which she helped me to place the skipper; after which, with a warning to me to be exceedingly careful and to make no noise, she handed me a paddle, thrust the canoe afloat, and vanished. And—and—well, that’s all! And now you may as well pitch me the yarn of your share of the night’s doings. If one may venture to judge by appearances you seem to have had a fairly lively time out here.”

“We have, I can assure you,” said I; and then I proceeded to give Cunningham a detailed account of all that had happened during the absence of himself and the skipper. I had scarcely finished when the cabin boy came up with the intimation that breakfast was ready in the cabin, and we accordingly went below, seated ourselves, and fell to. We did not dally long over the meal, for there was still plenty to be done and thought about; but before returning to the deck I remarked to Cunningham that I should like to look in and see how the skipper was getting on, and we both entered the stateroom together. To my surprise we found that the old chap was awake and seemingly feeling not very much the worse for the hard knock on the head which he had received; indeed, he wanted to turn out and dress and go on deck. But Cunningham, who had assumed the rôle of surgeon, would not hear of such a thing—would not even permit Brown to leave his bunk; so, as a compromise, I just had to sit down and spin the whole yarn of our adventure over again to him. The poor old fellow seemed very much cut up when he learned that we had lost six men—all of them compatriots of his, too—and bitterly reproached himself for having come to the island at all. Of course we comforted him as well as we could by pointing out to him that the happening was due not so much to want of precaution on his part as to the exceeding guile of the natives; and then I led the conversation round to the prisoners, and asked what he proposed to do with them. Cunningham was for taking the law into our own hands and inflicting upon them a salutary lesson by hanging one of them at the yardarm for each of our people who had been murdered; but Brown would not hear of this, and we were all three still discussing the matter when the cabin boy came down with a message from Murdock to say that a large canoe had just been launched from the beach and was heading for the schooner, and would I be pleased to go on deck.

Of course I instantly obeyed the call, for my first idea was that another attack was possibly impending; but when I got on deck I found that the canoe, although a large one, was manned by only four natives, who were approaching us very slowly, and apparently with a considerable amount of trepidation, and that a large palm-leaf was conspicuously displayed in the bows of the craft, the latter being, as I interpreted it, intended to serve the purpose of a flag of truce. Naturally we at once assumed our weapons, and saw that our firearms were fully loaded and placed handy for use, lest further treachery should be contemplated; and then I hailed the canoe and informed her occupants that if they had anything to say to us they might approach within easy speaking distance, but that they were not to attempt to come alongside without permission, and that if any such attempt were made they would at once be fired upon. And that there might be no misunderstanding upon this point I flourished a loaded gun in their sight, to show that we were quite prepared to carry out our threat.

Slowly and hesitatingly the canoe continued to approach the schooner until she had arrived within about twenty fathoms of us, and then her crew backed water and brought their craft to a standstill. A short consultation among them next followed, and then one of their number rose to his feet and hailed.

“Master,” he shouted, “we got it three mans ashore belong you. You any mans got it belong we?”

“Yes,” replied I. “We have eight of your people on board here. Are the white men unhurt?”

“No,” was the answer. “They all get it hurt leettle bit, not much. Black mans along you not hurt, eh?”

“Three of them are unhurt; the others are wounded so they no can walk. What for you not bring it off those white mans with you?” I demanded, adopting their peculiar mode of speech under the mistaken impression that I could thus make myself the better understood.

“Those white mans no can walk too,” answered my interlocutor. “Suppose you want it them, we bring them off, and you give it us those eight black fellows belong we, eh?”

So it was an exchange of prisoners that they had come off to negotiate, it appeared. Well, I was more than willing to make the exchange, but I did not care to appear too eager; so I temporised by enquiring as to the nature and extent of the white men’s hurts. But they either could not or would not reply in a manner that was perfectly intelligible to me, and matters seemed to be approaching a deadlock when one of the canoe men started to his feet, and in an eager, impatient manner, asked:

“Master, suppose you no got it Oahika aboard, eh?” which enquiry went a good way toward confirming my opinion that the rascal was a person of some importance.

“Yes,” I replied, “we got it Oahika, all right, not hurt one little bit.” Then, with some vague idea of trying the effect of a “bluff”, I continued: “He great blackguard scoundrel! He attack schooner last night, kill it two white mans! By and by we hang Oahika up there until he go dead!” and I pointed to the schooner’s lower yardarm.

A yell of anguish immediately followed this announcement of mine, fully confirming me in the belief that Oahika was likely to prove a valuable asset if properly manipulated. The next moment, however, one of the men jumped up and shouted:

“Mine no believe you got it Oahika. Suppose yes, you show it him, eh?”

“Murdock, Simpson,” I shouted, “just hoist that swab Oahika up on his feet and take him to the rail, so that those fellows in the canoe may see him.”

This was done; and the moment that the fellow’s head and shoulders appeared above the top of the schooner’s low bulwark another loud howl arose from the crew of the canoe, who incontinently flung themselves down on their knees and began to kow-tow energetically. But they were quickly interrupted by Oahika, who shouted angrily at them, and then, as soon as he had secured their attention, proceeded to gabble to them a long string of what seemed to be instructions, in a language quite unintelligible to me. When he had finished, the occupants of the canoe waved their hands, as if to indicate that they understood, then seized their paddles and began to sweep the canoe’s head round toward the shore. This sudden change of front rather puzzled me. I did not quite know what to make of it; it might mean anything, I thought, and among other things it might mean that Oahika had given instructions to muster every available fighting man in the village—or the island—and renew the attack upon the schooner. So I hailed the hastily departing canoe:

“Hillo, there, canoe ahoy! Where are you going, and what are you about to do?”

The men ceased paddling for a moment, and one of them flourished his hand toward the island.

“We get it back along ashore plenty quick and bring it them three mans belong you. Then you give it us Oahika, eh?” he announced.

“You bring the three white mans, and then we’ll see,” I retorted. “And—listen you—if you bring any more of your own men with you I shall shoot Oahika dead! Sabby?”

This threat, uttered upon the spur of the moment, seemed to disconcert them very decidedly, for they remained inactive, staring each other in the face. It also seemed to disconcert Oahika; for no sooner had I finished speaking than he began to shout a long string of further directions, to which the canoe men replied from time to time by waving their hands. Finally Oahika brought his communication to an end with a few words which, from the intonation of his voice, might have been an injunction to the men to hurry up; and away the canoe sped toward the shore.

As soon as it had gone I went down below and reported to the skipper, who now seemed to be not quite so well as he had been half an hour earlier. He was, naturally, very pleased to learn that the three men whom we had all believed to be dead were still alive; and he instructed me to make the best terms I could for their ransom, and, as soon as I had secured possession of them and the boat, to get the schooner under way and proceed to sea without further delay.

The canoe had been gone about three-quarters of an hour when, watching the shore through the ship’s telescope, I perceived a slight stir upon the beach, and presently became aware that a small party of natives had gathered about the jollyboat, which they pushed off from the beach, making fast her painter to the stern of the canoe. Then other natives appeared, bearing in grass hammocks the three missing seamen, who were laid in the sternsheets of the jollyboat; and finally the canoe was manned, apparently by the same four natives who had previously come off in her, and headed for the schooner, whereupon I gave orders for the windlass to be manned and the cable to be hove short, all ready for tripping the anchor at a moment’s notice. This was done; and by the time the canoe was once more within hailing distance the cable was so taut up and down that a single additional revolution of the windlass barrel would break out the anchor and free us from the ground.

And now came the really difficult part of my negotiation with the savages; for, being themselves superlatively unscrupulous and deceitful, they naturally suspected us of being the same, and would not come alongside, or render up possession of the jollyboat and the three wounded seamen whom she carried, until we on our part had released Oahika. And this I flatly refused to do, feeling that, as likely as not, they would play us some scurvy trick as soon as they had recovered possession of the man who, I now very strongly suspected, was the paramount chief of the island, or, if not that, at least a chief of very considerable importance. We argued, stipulated, and made counter stipulations, all to no purpose, and finally once more arrived at a deadlock. Of course I might very easily have settled the matter by shooting the four natives in the canoe; but that would have been an act of the very blackest treachery, and I was strongly of opinion that it was just such treacherous conduct on the part of certain unscrupulous white men that had made the natives of some of the Polynesian islands the cruel, treacherous wretches that they had become.

I therefore once more resorted to “bluff”, by hailing them and saying that unless they came alongside at once and surrendered possession of the boat and those in her, I would get the schooner under way and proceed to sea, taking Oahika and the rest of our prisoners with me; and to make my threat the more effective I turned away and gave the order to man the windlass. This was enough; with the first clank of the windlass pawls, Oahika, who had thus far taken no part in our second palaver, let out a yell at the men in the canoe which caused them to surrender instantly at discretion and rush their craft up alongside the schooner.

And now I determined upon a bold thing. These Roua Poua savages had caused us a vast amount of trouble and loss; through them we were short-handed to the extent of no less than six men; and I felt that for the sake of my own satisfaction and self-respect I must get something, though it were ever so little, back out of them. Therefore, since we white men were all armed, and therefore in a position to take good care of ourselves, as soon as the tackles were hooked into the jollyboat’s ringbolts I ordered the four savages in the canoe to leave her and come on deck to help to hoist in the boat; and this they did in a state of the most abject fear and trembling. Then I sent them for’ard to the windlass to assist in breaking out the anchor; and it was not until the schooner was actually adrift that I permitted them to begin the transfer of their wounded from theMartha’sdeck to the canoe. They displayed remarkably little consideration for the comfort and wellbeing of their comrades in the performance of this duty; and indeed I have always been of opinion that had I been foolish enough to liberate Oahika before the others had been transhipped, he and his canoemen would have incontinently made off at top speed for the shore, leaving the others, sound and wounded alike, upon our hands and at our mercy. But I was careful to keep Oahika until the last, and it was not until the schooner was fairly under way and heading out to sea that I cast him adrift and permitted him to go over the side, which he did in a splutter of mingled wrath and fear, pouring out a long string of what were probably native curses as he seized the steering paddle and violently thrust the canoe off the schooner’s side.

By midday we were bowling merrily away to the westward under every rag that we could set, and Roua Poua had sunk out of sight beneath the eastern horizon. Long before this, however—in fact, the moment that they were safely aboard and comfortably bestowed in their bunks—Cunningham had taken the three wounded seamen in hand; and when he had done all that he could for them he came up on deck and reported to me.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that there is not much hope for those three,” with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the forecastle. “Sullivan and Halpin have had their skulls cracked by blows inflicted with a war club, and their cases are very similar to that of the skipper, but worse; while poor Glenn has no less than eleven spear wounds in his body, and though none of them is very serious in itself this heat makes me terribly afraid of gangrene. However, I have done all that I can for them at present, and we must just hope for the best. Glenn tells me that after the skipper and I had left them the natives came swarming round them, exciting their curiosity by exhibiting curios of various kinds for sale, or barter, rather, at ridiculously cheap prices, and so enticing them away from the beach toward the village, where, they were informed, some really valuable articles might be seen. And then, when they arrived at the village, they were suddenly set upon before they had time to draw their weapons, overpowered, and confined in a hut, where they were left all day yesterday and all last night without food or water, and with their injuries untended. I am afraid there is not much hope for them, poor fellows!”

This was bad news—so very bad, indeed, that I felt it my duty to go forthwith to the skipper, report the matter to him, and ask for instructions; my own idea being that we ought to head for the Samoa or Tonga group, and procure properly qualified medical assistance with as little delay as possible.

But when I got down below and began to talk to the Old Man I soon found that he was, for some inscrutable reason, utterly opposed to any such idea. He would not give his reasons, but he positively forbade me to do as I had suggested, instructing me instead to work out a Great Circle track to Canton, and to get the ship upon her proper course at once. And as he seemed to be in full possession of all his faculties, and to know quite well what he was talking about, I had no alternative but to obey. And indeed, so far as saving the three men in the forecastle was concerned, we might as well have been heading for Canton as anywhere else; for Halpin and Glenn died within a couple of hours of each other that same night, while Sullivan lingered only some twenty-six hours longer.

I looked forward to a speedy and pleasant run to Canton, for I reckoned upon carrying the Trades with us practically all the way. But we were unfortunate; for after a fine run of nine days to the northward and westward we ran into the belt of equatorial calms in latitude 4 degrees South, and for fully three weeks thereafter encountered such extraordinary weather that we dared not ship our fins, from fear of having them carried away, or of badly straining the schooner. For instead of the long spell of calms which one usually expects in those latitudes the quiet weather generally lasted but an hour or two, and then was succeeded by such furious squalls that, for the most part, we could do nothing but run before them under bare poles; and perhaps the most exasperating part of it all was that these squalls blew mostly from the westward, or nearly dead in our teeth, so that it was only toward the tail end of them, just when they were dying out, that we were able to bring the little hooker to the wind for half an hour or so, and make a few miles of northing. And when it was not blowing with hurricane strength it was usually just the opposite: a flat calm, with a black, lowering, overcast sky, moist, steamy, overpowering heat, heavy storms of thunder and lightning, torrential downpours of tepid rain—which, by the way, enabled us to re-fill all our water tanks and casks—and waterspoutsad libitumconstantly threatening us with destruction.

It was a month, to a day, from the date of our departure from Roua Poua when we at length cleared the calm belt and got the first breath of the north-east Trades in latitude 3 degrees 47 minutes North, and longitude 158 degrees 55 minutes West, having been driven back almost as far east as Christmas Island by the baffling winds and furious squalls with which we had been obliged to contend; and this brought the dangerous Marshall group right athwart our track. Therefore, the poor old skipper being still unwell, and quite unfit for duty, I decided to make a good stretch to the northward—say as far as latitude 10 degrees North—before bearing up for Canton; by doing which I should have a clear sea before me for the remainder of the trip.

I have spoken of the skipper as being unwell and quite unfit for duty; but that scarcely conveys a correct impression of his condition. The fact was that he was well enough to be up and about on deck, but he was constantly worried with headache of the most distracting kind, and, what was still worse, his intellect seemed to be failing him: he suffered from frequent total lapses of memory, stopping short in the midst of a conversation simply because he forgot in a moment what he was talking about; and he was subject, from time to time, to hallucinations, when he would assure us, with the utmost gravity, that he was the King of England taking a holiday “incognito”, the re-incarnation of Morgan the pirate, or something else equally ridiculous, while at other times he would be perfectly rational. For the first two or three weeks, while these symptoms were in process of development, he caused Cunningham and me a very considerable amount of anxiety, for we were constantly dreading some new departure which would render him dangerous either to himself or to others; but at length, as we were unable to detect any such tendency, we grew easier in our minds, just allowing him to wander about the ship at his own sweet will, and amuse himself by giving the most extraordinary orders, which nobody ever even pretended to carry out. We came to the conclusion that he was suffering from some obscure form of concussion of the brain, from which we hoped he might be relieved upon our arrival at Hong-Kong, where we expected to obtain efficient surgical assistance; but that, meanwhile, he was in no very serious danger. As the event proved, however, we were all woefully mistaken. We had made as much northing as I deemed necessary, and were bowling along upon a west-nor’-west course, reeling off our ten knots per hour, with all our flying kites abroad and a fine north-east breeze over our starboard quarter, when, about four bells in the first; watch, the skipper came up on deck complaining that he found it impossible to sleep in consequence of the extreme heat of his cabin. The night was brilliantly starlit, and the air so clear that we could have easily distinguished a sail at a distance of two miles, had there been owe to see; but the light was not strong enough to enable me clearly to distinguish Brown’s features, even when he was standing beside me, while the cabin lamp was turned low, so that there was not much light coming through the skylight. But when the old fellow fell into step by my side, and began to talk quite rationally about the heat below, the impossibility of sleeping, and his gratification at the fine breeze which we had fallen in with, and so on, I was completely thrown off my guard; for he appeared to be in precisely the condition that I had often previously seen him in, when he had talked rationally enough for a time, taken a little walk—as he was doing at that moment—and then, suddenly forgetting what he was conversing about, gone below and slept for several hours.

All at once, as we were walking to and fro between the main rigging and the wheel grating, the old fellow halted, pulled off his cap, extracted a big bandana handkerchief from it, and proceeded to mop his head and face, from which—as in my own case—the perspiration was freely pouring.

“Great snakes,” he ejaculated, “but it is hot, and no mistake! The sweat’s pourin’ out o’ me like water outen a sponge. I guess that’s what’s makin’ me so all-fired thirsty. Where’s the water cask? I’m boun’ to have a drink. My tongue’s so dry it’s rattlin’ agin my teeth! Can’t ye hear it? Where’s that there scuttle butt, I say?”

“Better not drink direct from the cask, sir,” I said, for Cunningham had strongly urged us all to drink nothing but filtered water, and even that with a dash of lime juice in it, during the extreme heat. “The filter stands on the sideboard, and there is an opened bottle of lime juice in the rack above it; you will find that very much cooler and more refreshing than the water from the scuttle butt. That stuff is really not fit to drink.”

“But I’m so tarnation thirsty that I must have a drink,” he insisted, “and I’d rather drink outer the cask than go below. Why, man alive, that there cabin is like a oven!”

“Oh,” said I, glancing hastily round and noting that the weather seemed fine and settled, “if that is all I’ll very soon slip down and fetch you up a drink! Bring yourself to an anchor here on the wheel grating, sir, while I go below. I’ll be back in a brace of shakes. Just keep your eye on him, Chips,” I whispered to the carpenter, who was at the wheel. “I’ll not be gone more than half a minute.”

“Right you are, sir,” responded the carpenter, turning his quid in his mouth as the skipper obediently seated himself on the wheel grating, while I made a rush for the companion. I turned up the cabin lamp, procured a tumbler, and was in the act of measuring out a liberal dose of lime juice when I heard the carpenter’s voice suddenly upraised in accents of panic.

“Man overboard! Man overboard!!” he shouted. “Mr Temple, come on deck, sir; the skipper’s been and throwed hisself over the lee rail!”

Flinging down the tumbler and bottle of lime juice, I mounted the companion ladder in two jumps, nearly dashing my brains out against the slide in my haste, and stared stupidly about me for a moment, being more than half-stunned. Then, as I pulled myself together, I heard Chips repeating, parrot-wise:

“He just laid his han’s upon the rail and swung hisself clean overboard, like a boy jumpin’ a gate.”

“Down helm, man; down helm and round her to!” I roared. And rushing to the main rigging I let go the lee braces and began to drag frantically upon the weather ones in an ineffectual effort to back the topsail. Then I remembered that the weather studdingsails were set, being reminded thereof, in fact, by the snapping of the topmast studdingsail-boom, as the schooner, with her helm hard a-lee, rushed furiously up into the wind, and her topgallantsail, topsail, and squaresail flew aback, and the broken spar began to thresh spitefully against the fore rigging in the fresh breeze. I saw at once that I had made a mess of things to no purpose, and also stood to make a far worse mess of them if I was not careful; for the amount of sail which the schooner could carry while running off the wind was altogether too much for her when brought to, and she was now lying over with her lee rail buried, with the possibility that her masts might go over the side at any moment if she were not relieved in one way or another. As for saving the skipper, that was impossible: for—as I had forgotten for the moment—we were now, owing to the loss of six of our foremast men, short-handed, and we could not possibly launch a boat until the schooner was snugged down; and by the time we had done that we should be miles away from the spot where the skipper had gone overboard, without any certain, definite knowledge as to the precise direction in which to look for him. Therefore, all these circumstances coming to my mind in a flash, I jumped to the wheel and helped Chips to put it hard up again, luckily managing to get the little hooker before the wind once more with no further damage than the loss of a studdingsail-boom and the splitting of the lower studdingsail.

Back to IndexNext