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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Memory Of The Southern Seas, by Louis Becke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Memory Of The Southern Seas
+       1904
+
+Author: Louis Becke
+
+Release Date: March 11, 2008 [EBook #24807]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MEMORY OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A MEMORY OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS
+
+
+From "Chinkie's Flat And Other Stories"
+
+By Louis Becke
+
+
+Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company 1904
+
+
+
+
+
+CAPTAIN "BULLY" HAYES
+
+In other works by the present writer frequent allusion has been made,
+either by the author or by other persons, to Captain Hayes. Perhaps the
+continuous appearance of his name may have been irritating to many of
+my readers; if so I can only plead that it is almost impossible when
+writing of wild life in the Southern Seas to avoid mentioning him. Every
+one who sailed the Austral seas between the "fifties" and "seventies,"
+and thousands who had not, knew of him and had heard tales of him.
+In some eases these tales were to his credit; mostly they were not.
+However, the writer makes no further apology for reproducing the
+following sketch of the great "Bully" which he contributed to the _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, and which, by the courtesy of the editor of that journal,
+he is able to include in this volume.
+
+In a most interesting, though all too brief, sketch of the life of
+the late Rev. James Chalmers, the famous New Guinea missionary, which
+appeared in the January number of a popular religious magazine,
+the author, the Rev. Richard Lovett, gives us a brief glance of the
+notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes. Mr. Chalmers, in 1866, sailed for the
+South Seas with his wife in the missionary ship _John Williams_--the
+second vessel of that name, the present beautiful steamer being the
+fourth _John Williams_.
+
+The second John Williams had but a brief existence, for on her first
+voyage she was wrecked on Nine Island (the "Savage" Island of Captain
+Cook). Hayes happened to be there with his vessel, and agreed to convey
+the shipwrecked missionaries to Samoa. No doubt he charged them a pretty
+stiff price, for he always said that missionaries "were teaching Kanakas
+the degrading doctrine that even if a man killed his enemy and cut out
+and ate his heart in public, and otherwise misconducted himself, he
+could yet secure a front seat in the Kingdom of Heaven if he said he was
+sorry and was then baptized as Aperamo (Abraham) or Lakopo (Jacob)."
+
+"It is characteristic of Chalmers," writes Mr. Lovett, "that he was able
+to exert considerable influence over this ruffian, and even saw good
+points in him, not easily evident to others."
+
+The present writer sailed with Hayes on four voyages as supercargo, and
+was with the big-bearded, heavy-handed, and alleged "terror of the South
+Seas" when his famous brig _Leonora_ was wrecked on Strong's Island, one
+wild night in March, 1875. And he has nothing but kindly memories of a
+much-maligned man, who, with all his faults, was never the cold-blooded
+murderer whose fictitious atrocities once formed the theme of a highly
+blood-curdling melodrama staged in the old Victoria Theatre, in Pitt
+Street, Sydney, under the title of "The Pirate of the Pacific." In this
+lively production of dramatic genius Hayes was portrayed as something
+worse than Blackboard or Llonois, and committed more murders and
+abductions of beautiful women in two hours than ever fell to the luck in
+real life of the most gorgeous pirate on record. No one of the audience
+was more interested or applauded more vigorously the villain's downfall
+than "Bully" Hayes himself, who was seated in a private box with a lady.
+He had come to Sydney by steamer from Melbourne, where he had left his
+ship in the hands of brokers for sale, and almost the first thing he saw
+on arrival were the theatrical posters concerning himself and his career
+of crime.
+
+"I would have gone for the theatre people," he told the writer, "if they
+had had any money, but the man who 'played' me was the lessee of the
+theatre and was hard up. I think his name was Hoskins. He was a big
+fat fellow, with a soapy, slithery kind of a voice, and I lent him ten
+pounds, which he spent on a dinner to myself and some of his company. I
+guess we had a real good time."
+
+But let us hear what poor ill-fated Missionary Chalmers has to say about
+the alleged pirate:--
+
+"Hayes seemed to take to me during the frequent meetings we had on
+shore" (this was when the shipwrecked missionaries and their wives were
+living on Savage Island), "and before going on board for good I met him
+one afternoon and said to him, 'Captain Hayes, I hope you will have no
+objection to our having morning and evening service on board, and twice
+on Sabbaths. All short, and only those who like need attend.' Certainly
+not. My ship is a missionary ship now' (humorous dog), 'and I hope you
+will feel it so. All on board will attend these services.' I replied,
+'Only if they are inclined.'" (If they had shirked it, the redoubtable
+"Bully" would have made attendance compulsory with a belaying pin.)
+
+"Hayes was a perfect host and a thorough gentleman. His wife and
+children were on board. We had fearful weather all the time, yet I must
+say we enjoyed ourselves.... We had gone so far south that we could
+easily fetch Tahiti, and so we stood for it, causing us to be much
+longer on board. Hayes several times lost his temper and did very queer
+things, acting now and then more like a madman than a sane man. Much of
+his past life he related to us at table, especially of things (he did)
+to cheat Governments."
+
+Poor "Bully!" He certainly did like to "cheat Governments," although he
+despised cheating private individuals--unless it was for a large amount.
+And he frequently "lost his temper" also; and when that occurred
+things were very uncomfortable for the man or men who caused it. On
+one occasion, during an electrical storm off New Guinea, a number of
+corposants appeared on the yards of his vessel, which was manned by
+Polynesians and some Portuguese. One of the latter was so terrified at
+the ghastly _corpo santo_ that he fell on his knees and held a small
+leaden crucifix, which he wore on his neck, to his lips. His example was
+quickly followed by the rest of his countrymen; which so enraged Hayes
+that, seizing the first offender, he tore the crucifix from his hand,
+and, rolling it into a lump, thrust it into his month _and made him
+swallow it_.
+
+"You'll kill the man, sir," cried Hussey, his American mate, who, being
+a good Catholic, was horrified.
+
+Hayes laughed savagely: "If that bit of lead is good externally it ought
+to be a darned sight better when taken internally."
+
+He was a humorous man at times, even when he was cross. And he was one
+of the best sailor-men that ever trod a deck. A chronometer watch,
+which was committed to the care of the writer by Hayes, bore this
+inscription:--
+
+"_From Isaac Steuart, of New York, to Captain William Henry Hayes, of
+Cleveland, Ohio. A gift of esteem and respect for his bravery in saving
+the lives of seventeen persons at the risk of his own. Honor to the
+brave._"
+
+Hayes told me that story--modestly and simply as brave men only tell a
+tale of their own dauntless daring. And he told me other stories as well
+of his strange, wild career; of Gordon of Khartoum, whom he had known,
+and of Ward and Burgevine and the Taeping leaders; and how Burgevine
+and he quarrelled over a love affair and stood face to face, pistols in
+hand, when Ward sprang in between them and said that the woman was his,
+and that they were fools to fight over what belonged to neither of them
+and what he would gladly be rid of himself.
+
+Peace to his _manes!_ He died--in his sea-boots--from a blow on his big,
+bald head, superinduced by his attention to a lady who was "no better
+than she ought to have been," even for the islands of the North Pacific.
+
+
+
+
+THE "WHALE CURE"
+
+I once heard a man who for nearly six years had been a martyr to
+rheumatism say he would give a thousand pounds to have a cure effected.
+
+"I wish, then, that we were in Australia or New Zealand during the shore
+whaling season," remarked a friend of the writer; "I should feel pretty
+certain of annexing that thousand pounds." And then he described the
+whale cure.
+
+The "cure" is not fiction. It is a fact, so the whalemen assert, and
+there are many people at the township of Eden, Twofold Bay, New
+South Wales, who, it is vouched, can tell of several cases of chronic
+rheumatism that have been absolutely perfectly cured by the treatment
+herewith briefly described. How it came to be discovered I do not know,
+but it has been known to American whalemen for years.
+
+When a whale is killed and towed ashore (it does not matter whether it
+is a "right," humpback, finback, or sperm whale) and while the interior
+of the carcase still retains a little warmth, a hole is out through one
+side of the body sufficiently large to admit the patient, the lower
+part of whose body from the feet to the waist should sink in the whale's
+intestines, leaving the head, of course, outside the aperture. The
+latter is closed up as closely as possible, otherwise the patient would
+not be able to breathe through the volume of ammoniacal gases which
+would escape from every opening left uncovered. It is these gases, which
+are of an overpowering and atrocious odour, that bring about the cure,
+so the whalemen say. Sometimes the patient cannot stand this horrible
+bath for more than an hour, and has to be lifted out in a fainting
+condition, to undergo a second, third, or perhaps fourth course on that
+or the following day. Twenty or thirty hours, it is said, will effect a
+radical cure in the most severe cases, provided there is no malformation
+or distortion of the joints, and even in such cases the treatment causes
+very great relief. One man who was put in up to his neck in the carcass
+of a small "humpback" stood it for sixteen hours, being taken out at
+two-hour intervals. He went off declaring himself to be cured. A year
+later he had a return of the complaint and underwent the treatment a
+second time.
+
+All the "shore" whalemen whom the writer has met thoroughly believe in
+the efficacy of the remedy, and by way of practical proof assert that
+no man who works at cutting-in and trying out a whale ever suffers
+from rheumatism. Furthermore, however, some of them maintain that the
+"deader" the whale is, the better the remedy. "More gas in him," they
+say. And any one who has been within a mile of a week-dead whale will
+believe _that_.
+
+Anyway, if there is any person, rheumatic or otherwise, who wants to
+emulate Jonah's adventure in a safe manner (with a dead whale), let him
+write to the Davidson Brothers, Ben Boyd Point, Twofold Bay, N.S.W., or
+to the Messrs. Christian, Norfolk Island, and I am sure those valorous
+whalemen would help him to achieve his desire.
+
+
+
+
+THE SEA "SALMON" SEASON IN AUSTRALIA
+
+The sea salmon make their appearance on the southern half of the eastern
+seaboard of Australia with undeviating regularity in the last week of
+October, and, entering the rivers and inlets, remain on the coast till
+the first week of December. As far as my knowledge goes, they come
+from the south and travel northwards, and do not appear to relish the
+tropical waters of the North Queensland coast, though I have heard that
+some years ago a vast "school" entered the waters of Port Denison.
+
+Given a dear, sunny day and a smooth sea the advent of these fish to
+the bar harbours and rivers of New South Wales presents a truly
+extraordinary sight. From any moderately high bluff or headland one can
+discern their approach nearly two miles away. You see a dark patch upon
+the water, and were it not for the attendant flocks of gulls and other
+aquatic birds, one would imagine it to be but the passing reflection of
+a cloud. But presently you see another and another; and, still farther
+oat, a long black line flecked with white can be discerned with a good
+glass. Then you look above--the sky is cloudless blue, and you know
+that the dark moving patches are the advance battalions of countless
+thousands of sea salmon, and that the mile-long black and white streak
+behind them is the main body of the first mighty army; for others are to
+follow day by day for another fortnight.
+
+Probably the look-out man at the pilot station is the first to see
+them, and in a few minates the lazy little seaport town awakes from its
+morning lethargy, and even the butcher, and baker, and bootmaker, and
+bank manager, and other commercial magnates shut up shop and walk to
+the pilot station to watch the salmon "take" the bar, whilst the entire
+public school rushes home to prepare its rude tackle for the onslaught
+that will begin at dark.
+
+The bar is a mile wide or more, and though there is but little surf,
+the ebbing tide, running at five knots, makes a great commotion, and the
+shallow water is thick with yellow sand swept seaward to the pale green
+beyond. Presently the first "school" of salmon reaches the protecting
+reef on the southern side--and then it stops. The fish well know that
+such a current as that cannot be stemmed, and wait, moving slowly to
+and fro, the dark blue compactness of their serried masses ever and
+anon broken by flashes of silver as some turn on their sides or make an
+occasional leap clear out of the water to avoid the pressure of their
+fellows.
+
+An hour or so passes; then the tumult on the bar ceases, the incoming
+seas rise clear and sandless, and the fierce race of the current slows
+down to a gentle drift; it is slack water, and the fish begin to move.
+One after another the foremost masses sweep round the horn of the reef
+and head for the smooth water inside. On the starboard hand a line of
+yellow sandbank is drying in the sun, and the passage has now narrowed
+down to a width of fifty yards; in twenty minutes every inch of water,
+from the rocky headland on the south side of the entrance to where the
+river makes a sharp turn northward, half a mile away, is packed with a
+living, moving mass. Behind follows the main body, the two horns of
+the crescent shape which it had at first preserved now swimming swiftly
+ahead, and converging towards each other as the entrance to the bar is
+reached, and the centre falling back with the precision of well-trained
+troops. And then in a square, solid mass, thirty or forty feet in width,
+they begin the passage, and for two hours or more the long dark lines of
+fish pass steadily onward, only thrown into momentary confusion now and
+then by a heavy swell, which, however, does no more than gently undulate
+the rearmost lines of fish, and then subsides, overcome by the weight
+and solidity of the living wall.
+
+Along the beach on the southern side of the river stand a hundred or
+more yelling urchins, with stout lines fitted with many baitless hooks
+and weighted with a stone. As the swarming fish press steadily on within
+ten feet or less of the shore the children fling their lines across, and
+draw them quickly in. Sometimes two or three fish are "jagged" at once,
+and as the average weight is 10 lb. the jagger takes a turn of the line
+around his waist and straggles up the beach. Even if he has but one fish
+hooked amidships he has all he can do to drag him out from the countless
+thousands and land him. It is not an eminently ideal or sportsmanlike
+sort of fishing, this "jagging," but it possesses a marvellous enjoyment
+and fascination for the youth of ten, and older people as well; for a
+full-grown salmon is a powerful fellow, and his big, fluke-like tail
+enables him to make a terrific rush when under the influence of terror
+or when chasing his prey.
+
+Once over the bar and into the placid waters of the tidal river, the
+vanguards of the hundreds of thousands to follow pursue their way
+steadily up the shallow flats and numberless blind creeks, where they
+remain till spawning is over. Every day some fresh accessions to their
+numbers, and at night time strange, indescribable sounds are heard,
+caused by the movements of the fishes' tails and fins as they swim
+to and fro, and one section, meeting another, endeavours to force a
+right-of-way. On the third or fourth evening the sharks and porpoises
+appear, having followed the "schools" in from the sea, and wreak fearful
+havoc among them. Sometimes in a deep pool or quiet reach of the river
+one may see a school of perhaps five or six thousand terrified salmon,
+wedged one up against the other, unable to move from their very numbers,
+while half a dozen sharks dash in among them and devour them by the
+score; and often as the current runs seaward hundreds of half bodies of
+salmon can be seen going out over the bar. At night time the townspeople
+appear on the scene in boats with lanterns and spears, and for no other
+purpose than the mere love of useless slaughter kill the fish till their
+arms are exhausted. At places within easy access of Sydney by steamer or
+rail some few thousands of salmon are sent to market, but as the flesh
+is somewhat coarse, they are only bought by the poorer members of the
+community, 4d. and 6d. each being considered a good retail price for a
+10 lb. fish. The roes, however, are excellent eating, and some attempt
+has been made to smoke them on a large scale, but like everything else
+connected with the fishing industry (or rather want of industry) in New
+South Wales, has failed. It sometimes happens (as I once witnessed in
+Trial Bay, on the coast of New South Wales) that heavy weather will
+set in when the salmon are either passing inwards over the bars or are
+returning to sea. The destruction that is then wrought among them is
+terrific. On the occasion of which I speak, every heavy roller that
+reared and then dashed upon the beach flung upon the sands hundreds of
+the fish, stunned and bleeding. At one spot where the beach had but a
+very slight inclination towards the water from the line of scrub above
+high-water mark there were literally many thousands of salmon, lying
+three and four deep, and in places piled up in irregular ridges and
+firmly packed together with sand and seaweed.
+
+
+
+
+"JACK SHARK"
+
+"What is the greatest number of sharks that you have ever seen together
+at one time?" asked an English lady in San Francisco of Captain Allen,
+of the New Bedford barque _Acorn Barnes_.
+
+"Two or three hundred when we have been cutting-in a whale; two or three
+thousand in Christmas Island lagoon."
+
+Some of the hardy old seaman's listeners smiled somewhat incredulously
+at the "two or three thousand," but nevertheless he was not only not
+exaggerating, but might have said five or six thousand. The Christmas
+Island to which he referred must not be mistaken for the island of the
+same name in the Indian Ocean--the Cocos-Keeling group. It is in the
+North Pacific, two degrees north of the equator and 157.30 W., and is
+a low, sandy atoll, encompassing a spacious but rather shallow lagoon,
+teeming with non-poisonous fish. It is leased from the Colonial Office
+by a London firm, who are planting the barren soil with coconut trees
+and fishing the lagoon for pearl-shell. Like many other of the isolated
+atolls in the North Pacific, such as the Fannings, Palmyra, and
+Providence Groups, the lagoon is resorted to by sharks in incredible
+numbers; and even at the present time the native labourers employed by
+the firm alluded to make a considerable sum of money by catching sharks
+and drying the fins and tails for export to Sydney, and thence to
+China, where they command a price ranging from 6d. to 1s. 6d. per pound,
+according to quality.
+
+The lagoon sharks are of a different species to the short, thick,
+wide-jawed "man-eaters," although they are equally dangerous at night
+time as the deep-sea prowlers. The present writer was for a long time
+engaged with a native crew in the shark-catching industry in the North
+Pacific, and therefore had every opportunity of studying Jack Shark and
+his manners.
+
+On Providence Lagoon (the Ujilong of the natives), once the secret
+rendezvous of the notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes and his associate
+adventurer, Captain Ben Peese, I have, at low tide, stood on the edge of
+the coral reef on one side of South Passage, and gazed in astonishment
+at the extraordinary numbers of sharks entering the lagoon for their
+nightly onslaught on the vast bodies of fish with which the water
+teems. They came on in droves, like sheep, in scores at first, then
+in hundreds, and then in packed masses, their sharp, black-tipped fins
+stretching from one side of the passage to the other. As they gained the
+inside of the lagoon they branched off, some to right and left, others
+swimming straight on towards the sandy beaches of the chain of islets.
+From where I stood I could have killed scores of them with a whale
+lance, or even a club, for they were packed so closely that they
+literally scraped against the coral walls of the passage; and some
+Gilbert Islanders who were with me amused themselves by seizing several
+by their tails and dragging them out upon the reef. They were nearly all
+of the same size, about seven feet, with long slender bodies, and their
+markings, shape, and general appearance were those of the shark called
+by the Samoans _moemoeao_ ("sleeps all day"), though not much more than
+half their length. The Gilbert Islanders informed me that this species
+were also _bakwa mata te ao_ (sleepers by day) at certain seasons of
+the year, but usually sought their prey by night at all times; and a few
+months later I had an opportunity afforded me of seeing some hundreds of
+them asleep. This was outside the barrier reef of the little island of
+Ailuk, in the Marshall Group. We were endeavouring to find and recover
+a lost anchor, and were drifting along in a boat in about six fathoms of
+water; there was not a breath of wind, and consequently we had no need
+to use water glasses, for even minute objects could be very easily
+discerned through the crystal water.
+
+"Hallo! look here," said the mate, "we're right on top of a nice little
+family party of sharks. It's their watch below."
+
+Lying closely together on a bottom of sand and coral _debris_ were about
+a dozen sharks, heads and tails in perfect line. Their skins were a
+mottled brown and yellow, like the crustacean-feeding "tiger shark"
+of Port Jack-son. They lay so perfectly still that the mate lowered
+a grapnel right on the back of one. He switched his long, thin tail
+lazily, "shoved" himself along for a few feet, and settled down again to
+sleep, his bedmates taking no notice of the intruding grapnel. Further
+on we came across many more--all in parties of from ten to twenty, and
+all preserving in their slumber a due sense of regularity of outline in
+the disposition of their long bodies.
+
+The natives of the low-lying equatorial islands--the Kingsmill, Gilbert,
+Ellice, and Tokelau or Union Groups--are all expert shark fishermen;
+but the wild people of Paanopa (Ocean Island) stand _facile princeps_. I
+have frequently seen four men in a small canoe kill eight or ten sharks
+(each of which was as long as their frail little craft) within three
+hours.
+
+
+
+
+SOME PACIFIC ISLANDS FISHES
+
+Of all the food-fishes inhabiting the reefs, lagoons, and tidal waters
+of the islands of the North and South Pacific, there are none that are
+prized more than the numerous varieties of sand-mullet. Unlike the same
+fishes in British and other colder waters, they frequently reach a great
+size, some of them attaining two feet in length, and weighing up to ten
+pounds; and another notable feature is the great diversity of colour
+characterising the whole family. The writer is familiar with at least
+ten varieties, and the natives gave me the names of several others
+which, however, are seldom taken in sufficient numbers to make them a
+common article of diet. The larger kind are caught with hook and line in
+water ranging from three to five fathoms in depth, the smaller kinds are
+always to be found in the very shallow waters of the lagoons, where they
+are taken by nets. At night, by the aid of torches made of dried coconut
+leaf, the women and children capture them in hundreds as they lie on
+the clear, sandy bottom. In the picturesque lagoons of the Ellice Group
+(South Pacific), and especially in that of Nanomea, these fish afford
+excellent sport with either rod or hand-line, and sport, too, with
+surroundings of the greatest beauty imaginable; for the little lagoon
+of Nanomea is perfectly landlocked, except where there are breaks of
+reef--dry at low water--which is as clear as crystal, and the low-lying
+belt of land is a verdant girdle of coco and pandanus palms, growing
+with bread-fruit and _fetau_ trees on the rich, warm soil composed of
+vegetable matter and decayed coral detritis.
+
+And then, too, you can look over the side of the canoe, or from an
+exposed boulder of coral, and see the fish take your bait--unless a
+breeze is rippling the surface of the water.
+
+I usually chose the early morning, before the trade wind roused itself,
+as then, if in a canoe, one need not anchor, but drift about from one
+side of the lagoon to the other; then about ten o'clock, when the breeze
+came, I would paddle over to the lee of the weather side of the island
+(the land in places not being much wider than the Palisadoes of Port
+Royal in Jamaica) and fish in unruffled water in some deep pool among
+a number of sand banks, or rather round-topped hillocks, which even at
+high water were some feet above the surface.
+
+When bent on sand-mullet--_afulu_ the natives call them--I was in the
+habit of going alone, although the moment I appeared in the village
+carrying my rod, lines, and gun, I was always besought to take one or
+two men with me. One of the most ardent fishermen on the island was one
+Kino--a gentleman who weighed eighteen stone; and, as my canoe was only
+intended for two light-weights like myself, I always tried to avoid
+meeting him, for not only was he most persistent in his desire to see
+how I managed to get so many mullet, but was most anxious to learn to
+speak English.
+
+On one occasion I fatuously took the monster out in my whaleboat to
+fish for _takuo_ (a variety of _tuna_) one calm starlight night when the
+ocean was like a sheet of glass. We pulled out over the reef, and when
+a mile from the shore lowered our heavy lines and began fishing. For
+nearly a quarter of an hour neither of us spoke, then he suddenly asked
+me in his fat, wheezy tones, if I would mind telling him something.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Will you tell me, friend, what are the English words that should be
+spoken by one of us of Nanomea to a ship captain, giving him greeting,
+and asking him if he hath had a prosperous voyage with fair weather? My
+heart is sick with envy that Pita and Loli speak English, and I cannot."
+
+Forgetting my past experiences of my man, I was fool enough to tell him.
+
+"You say this: 'Good morning, Captain; have you had a good voyage and
+fair weather?'"
+
+He greedily repeated each word after me, very slowly and carefully; then
+he asked me to tell him again. I did so. Then he sighed with pleasure.
+
+"Kind friend, just a few times more," he said.
+
+I told him the sentence over and over again for at least a score of
+times; and his smooth, fat face beamed when at last he was able to say
+the words alone. Then he began whispering it. Five minutes passed, and
+he tackled me again.
+
+"Is this right?--'Good--mornin',
+kipen--ha--ad--you--have--goot--foy--age--and--fair wesser?'"
+
+"That is right," I said impatiently, "but ask me no more to-night.
+Dost not know that it is unlucky to talk when fishing for _takuo_ and
+_tautau?_"
+
+"Dear friend, _that_ we believed only in the heathen days. _Now_ we are
+Christians."
+
+He paused a moment, then raised his face to the stars and softly
+murmured, "Good--mornin' kapen--haad--you--you--have--goot--foyage--and
+wesser--and fair--wesser?" Then he looked at me interrogatively. I took
+no notice.
+
+He toyed with his line and bent an earnest gaze down in the placid
+depths of the water as if he saw the words down there, then taking a
+turn of his line round a thwart, he put his two elbows on his enormous
+naked knees, and resting his broad, terraced chin on the palms of his
+hands, he said slowly and mournfully, as if he were communing with some
+one in the spirit-world--
+
+"Good--mornin'--kapen. Haad--you--haave----" &c., &c.
+
+Then I sharply spoke a few words of English--simple in themselves, but
+well understood by nearly every native of the South Seas. He looked
+surprised, and also reproachful, but went on in a whisper so faint that
+I could scarcely hear it; sometimes quickly and excitedly, sometimes
+doubtingly and with quivering lips, now raising his eyes to heaven, and
+with drooping lower jaw gurgling the words in his thick throat; then
+sighing and muttering them with closed eyes and a rapt expression of
+countenance, till with a sudden snort of satisfaction, he ceased--at
+least I thought he had. He took up a young coconut, drank it, and began
+again as fresh as ever.
+
+"Stop!" I said angrily. "Art thou a grown man or a child? Here is some
+tobacco, fill thy pipe, and cease muttering like a _tama valea_ (idiot
+boy)."
+
+He shook his head. "Nay, if I smoke, I may forget. I am very happy
+to-night, kind friend. Good-mor----"
+
+"May Erikobai" (a cannibal god of his youth) "polish his teeth on thy
+bones!" I cried at last in despair. That shocking heathen curse silenced
+him, but for the next two hours, whenever I looked at the creature, I
+saw his lips moving and a silly, fatuous expression on his by no means
+unintelligent face. I never took him out with me again, although he sent
+me fowls and other things as bribes to teach him more English.
+
+  *                 *                 *                 *                 *
+
+These sand-mullet are very dainty-feeding fish. They are particularly
+fond of the soft tail part of the hermit crabs which abound all over
+the island, especially after rain has fallen. Some of the shells (_T.
+niloticus_) in which they live are so thick and strong, however, that
+it requires two heavy stones to crush them sufficiently to take out the
+crab, the upper part of whose body is useless for bait. For a stick of
+tobacco, the native children would fill me a quart measure, and perhaps
+add some few shrimps as well, or half a dozen large sea urchins--a very
+acceptable bait for mullet. My rod was a slender bamboo--cost a quarter
+of a dollar, and was unbreakable--and my lines of white American cotton,
+strong, durable, and especially suitable for fishing on a bottom of pure
+white sand. My gun was carried on the outrigger platform, within easy
+reach, for numbers of golden plover frequented the sand banks, feeding
+on the serried battalions of tiny soldier crabs, and in rainy weather
+they were very easy to shoot. The rest of my gear consisted of twenty or
+thirty cartridges, a box of assorted hooks, a heavy 27-cord line with
+a 5-in. hook (in case I saw any big rock cod about), a few bottles of
+lager, some ship biscuits or cold yam, and a tin of beef or sardines,
+and some salt. This was a day's supply of food, and if I wanted more,
+there were plenty of young coconuts to be had by climbing for them, and
+I could cook my own fish, native fashion; lastly there was myself, in
+very easy attire--print shirt, dungaree pants, panama hat, and no boots,
+in place of which I used the native _takka_, or sandals of coconut
+fibre, which are better than boots when walking on coral. Sometimes I
+would remain away till the following morning, sleeping on the weather
+side of the island under a shelter of leaves to keep off the dew, and
+on such occasions two or three of the young men from the village would
+invariably come and keep me company--and help eat the fish and birds.
+However, they were very well conducted, and we always spent a pleasant
+night, rose at daybreak, bathed in the surf, or in the lagoon, and after
+an early breakfast returned to the village, or had some more fishing. It
+was a delightful life.
+
+My canoe was so light that it could easily be carried by one person from
+the open shed where it was kept, and in a few minutes after leaving
+my house I would be afloat, paddling slowly over the smooth water, and
+looking over the side for the mullet. In the Nanomea, Nui, and Nukufetau
+Lagoons the largest but scarcest variety are of a purple-grey, with fins
+(dorsal and abdominal) and mouth and gill-plates tipped with yellow;
+others again are purple-grey with dull roddish markings. This kind, with
+those of an all bright yellow colour throughout, are the most valued,
+though, as I have said, the whole family are prized for their delicacy
+of flavour.
+
+As soon as I caught sight of one or more of the sought-for fish, I would
+cease paddling, and bait my hook; and first carefully looking to see
+if there were any predatory leather-jackets or many-coloured wrasse in
+sight, would lower away, the hook soon touching the bottom, as I always
+used a small sinker of coral stone. This was necessary only because of
+the number of other fish about--bass, trevally, and greedy sea-pike,
+with teeth like needles and as hungry as sharks. In the vicinity of the
+reef, or about the isolated coral boulders, or "mushrooms" as we called
+them, these fish were a great annoyance to me, though my native
+friends liked them well enough, especially the large, gorgeously-hued
+"leather-jackets," to which they have given the very appropriate name
+of _isuumu moana_--the sea-rat--for they have a great trick of quietly
+biting a baited line a few inches above the hook. _Apropos_ of the
+"sea-rat," I may mention that their four closely-set and humanlike teeth
+are so thick that they will often crush an ordinary hook as if it were
+made of glass, and as their mouths are exceedingly small, and many are
+heavy, powerful fishes, they cause havoc with ordinary tackle. But a
+fellow-trader and myself devised a very short, stout hook (1 1/2 inch of
+shank) with a barbless curve well turned in towards the shank; these
+we bent on to a length of fine steel wire seizing. They proved just the
+ideal hook for the larger kind of sea-rat, which run up to 10 lb., and
+the natives were so greatly taken with the device that, whenever a ship
+touched at the island, short pieces of fine steel wire rigging were
+eagerly bought (or begged for).
+
+However, no leather-jackets, wrasse, greedy rock-cod, or keen-eyed
+trevally being about, the bait touches the sandy bottom, and then you
+will see one--perhaps half a dozen--_afulu_ cease poking their noses in
+the sand, and make for it steadily but cautiously. When within a foot
+or so, they invariably stop dead, and eye the bait to see if it is worth
+eating. But they are soon satisfied--that round, pale green thing with
+delicious juices exuding from it is an _uga_ (hermit crab) and must not
+be left to be devoured by rude, big-mouthed rock-cod or the like, and
+in another moment or two your line is tautened out, and a purple-scaled
+beauty is fighting gamely for his life in the translucent waters of the
+lagoon, followed half-way to the surface by his companions, whom, later
+on, you place beside him in the bottom of the canoe. And even to look
+at them is a joy, for they are graceful in shape, lovely in colour, and
+each scale is a jewel.
+
+You take up the paddle and send the canoe along for half-a-cable's
+length towards a place where, under the ledge of the inner reef, both
+_afulu sama sama_ and _afulu lanu uli_ (yellow and purple mullet) are
+certain to be found; and, as the little craft slips along, a large
+gar--green-backed, silvery-sided, and more than a yard long--may dart
+after you like a gleaming, hiltless rapier skimming the surface of the
+water. If you put out a line with a hook--baited with almost anything--a
+bit of fish a strip of white or red rag--you will have some sport,
+for these great gars are a hard-fighting fish, and do the tarpon
+jumping-trick to perfection. But if you have not a line in readiness you
+can wait your chance, and as he comes close alongside, break his back
+with a blow from the sharp blade of your paddle, and jump overboard and
+secure him ere he sinks.
+
+"Not very sportsmanlike," some people will say; but the South Sea native
+is very utilitarian, and it takes a keen eye and hand to do the
+thing neatly. And not only are these gars excellent eating--like all
+surface-feeding, or other fish which show a "green" backbone when
+cooked; but fore and aft strips out from their sheeny sides make
+splendid bait for deep-sea habitants, such as the giant sea bass and the
+200-pounder "coral" cod.
+
+Under the ledge of the inner reef, if you get there before the sun
+is too far to the westward, so that your eyes are not blinded by its
+dazzling, golden light, you will see, as you drop your line for the
+yellow and purple mullet which swim deep down over the fine coral sand,
+some of the strangest shaped, most fantastically, and yet beautifully
+coloured rock fish imaginable. As you pull up a mullet (or a green and
+golden striped wrasse which has seized the bait not meant for him), many
+of these beautiful creations of Nature will follow it up to within a
+few feet of the canoe, wondering perhaps what under the sea it means
+by acting in such a manner; others--small creatures of the deepest,
+loveliest blue--flee in tenor at the unwonted commotion, and hide
+themselves among the branching glories of their coral home.
+
+
+
+
+"LUCK"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A "hard" man was Captain William Rodway of Sydney, New South Wales, and
+he prided himself upon the fact. From the time he was twenty years of
+age, he had devoted himself to making and saving money, and now at sixty
+he was worth a quarter of a million.
+
+He began life as cabin boy on a north-country collier brig; was starved,
+kicked, and all but worked to death; and when he came to command a
+ship of his own, his north-country training stood him in good
+stead--starving, kicking, and working his crew to death came as
+naturally to him as breathing. He spared no one, nor did he spare
+himself.
+
+From the very first everything went well with him. He saved enough money
+by pinching and grinding his crew--and himself--to enable him to buy
+the vessel to which he had been appointed. Then he bought others,
+established what was known as Rodway's Line, gave up going to sea
+himself, rented an office in a mean street, where he slept and cooked
+his meals, and worked harder than ever at making money, oblivious of the
+sneers of those who railed at his parsimony. He was content.
+
+One Monday morning at nine o'clock he took his seat as usual in his
+office, and began to open his pile of letters, his square-set, hard
+face, with its cold grey eyes, looking harder than ever, for he had been
+annoyed by the old charwoman who cleaned his squalid place asking him
+for more wages.
+
+He was half-way through his correspondence when a knock sounded.
+
+"Come in," he said gruffly.
+
+The door opened, and a handsome, well-built young man of about thirty
+years of age entered.
+
+"Good morning, Captain Rodway."
+
+"Morning, Lester. What do you want? Why are you not at sea?" and he bent
+his keen eyes upon his visitor.
+
+"I'm waiting for the water-boat; but otherwise I'm ready to sail."
+
+"Well, what is it then?"
+
+"I want to know if it is a fact that you will not employ married men as
+captains?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Will you make no exception in my favour?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I have been five years in your employ as mate and master of the
+_Harvest Home_, and I am about to marry."
+
+"Do as you please, but the day you marry you leave my service."
+
+The young man's face flushed. "Then you can give me my money, and I'll
+leave it to-day."
+
+"Very well. Sit down," replied the old man, reaching for his wages book.
+
+"There are sixty pounds due to you," he said; "go on board and wait
+for me. I'll be there at twelve o'clock with the new man, and we'll go
+through the stores and spare gear together. If everything is right, I'll
+pay your sixty pounds--if not, I'll deduct for whatever is short. Good
+morning."
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon Captain Tom Lester landed at Circular
+Quay with his effects and sixty sovereigns in his pocket.
+
+Leaving his baggage at an hotel he took a cab, drove to a quiet
+little street in the suburb of Darling Point, and stopped at a quaint,
+old-fashioned cottage surrounded by a garden.
+
+The door was opened by a tall, handsome girl of about twenty-two.
+
+"Tom!"
+
+"Lucy!" he replied, mimicking her surprised tone. Then he became grave,
+and leading her to a seat, sat beside her, and took her hand.
+
+"Lucy, I have bad news. Rod way dismissed me this morning, and I have
+left the ship."
+
+The girl's eyes filled. "Never mind, Tom. You will get another."
+
+"Ah, perhaps I might have to wait a long time. I have another plan.
+Where is Mrs. Warren? I must tell her that our marriage must be put
+off."
+
+"Why should it, Tom? I don't want it to be put off. And neither does
+she."
+
+"But I have no home for you."
+
+"We can live here until we have one of our own. Mother will be only too
+happy."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Absolutely, or I would not say it."
+
+"Will you marry me this day week?"
+
+"Yes, dear--today if you wish. We have waited two years."
+
+"You're a brave little woman, Lucy," and he kissed her. "Now, here is
+my plan. I can raise nearly a thousand pounds. I shall buy the _Dolphin_
+steam tug--I can get her on easy terms of payment--fill her with coal
+and stores, and go to Kent's Group in Bass's Straits, and try and
+refloat the _Braybrook Castle_. I saw the agents and the insurance
+people this morning--immediately after I left old Bodway. If I float
+her, it will mean a lot of money for me. If I fail, I shall at least
+make enough to pay me well by breaking her up. The insurance people know
+me, and said very nice things to me."
+
+"Will you take me, Tom?"
+
+"Don't tempt me, Lucy. It will be a rough life, living on an almost
+barren, rocky island, inhabited only by black snakes, albatrosses, gulls
+and seals."
+
+"Tom, you _must_. Come, let us tell mother."
+
+Three days later they were married, and at six o'clock in the evening
+the newly-made bride was standing beside her husband on the bridge
+of the _Dolphin_, which was steaming full speed towards Sydney Heads,
+loaded down almost to the waterways with coals and stores for four
+months.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Two months had passed, and the sturdy _Dolphin_ was lying snugly at
+anchor in a small, well-sheltered cove on one of the Kent's Group of
+islands. Less than a hundred yards away was one of the rudest attempts
+at a house ever seen--that is, externally--for it was built with
+wreckage from many ships and was roofed with tarpaulins and coarse
+"albatross" grass. Seated on a stool outside the building was Mrs.
+Lester, engaged in feeding a number of noisy fowls with broken-up
+biscuit, but looking every now and then towards the _Braybrook Cattle_,
+which lay on the rocks a mile away with only her lower masts standing.
+It was nearing the time when her husband and his men would be returning
+from their usual day's arduous toil. She rose, shook the biscuit crumbs
+from her apron, and walking down to the _Dolphin_, anchored just in
+front of the house, called--"Manuel."
+
+A black, woolly head appeared above the companion way, and Manuel,
+the cook of the wrecking party, came on deck, jumped into the dinghy
+alongside and sculled ashore.
+
+"Manuel, you know that all the men are having supper in the house
+to-night," she said, as the man--a good-natured Galveston negro--stepped
+on shore.
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Well, I've done all _my_ share of the cooking--I've made two batches of
+bread, and the biggest sea pie you ever saw in your life, but I want two
+buckets of water from the spring."
+
+"All right, ma'am. I'll tote 'em up fo' yo' right away.".
+
+"Please do. And I'll come with you. Captain Lester and the others
+won't be here for half an hour yet, and I want to show you some
+curious-looking stuff I saw on the beach this morning. It looks like
+dirty soap mixed with black shells, like fowl's beaks."
+
+The negro's face displayed a sudden interest. "Mixed with shells, yo'
+say, ma'am. Did yo' touch it?"
+
+"No--it looks too unpleasant."
+
+The negro picked up the buckets, and, followed by Mrs. Lester, set out
+along a path which led to a rocky pool of some dimensions filled with
+rain water.. "Leave the buckets till we come back, Manuel We have not
+far to go."
+
+She led the way to the beach, and then turning to the left walked along
+the hard, white sand till they came to a bar of low rocks covered with
+sea-moss and lichen. Lying against the seaward face of the rock was
+a pile of driftweed, kelp, crayfish shells, &c, and half buried in
+_debris_ was the object that had aroused her curiosity.
+
+"There it is, Manuel," she said, pointing to an irregularly-shaped mass
+of a mottled grey, yellow and brown substance, looking like soap, mixed
+with cinders and ashes.
+
+The negro whipped out his sheath knife, plunged it into the mass, then
+withdrew it, pressed the flat of the blade to his nostrils, and then
+uttered a yell of delight, clapped his hands, took off his cap and
+tossed it in the air, and rolled his eyes in such an extraordinary
+manner, that Mrs. Lester thought he had become suddenly insane.
+
+"Yo' am rich woman now, ma'am," he said in his thick, fruity voice. "Dat
+am ambergris. I know it well 'nuff. I was cook on a whaleship fo' five
+years, and have handled little bits of ambergris two or three times, but
+no one in de world, I believe, ever see such a lump like dis."
+
+"Is it worth anything then?"
+
+"Worth anything, ma'am! It am worth twenty-two shillings de ounce!"
+
+He knelt down and began clearing away the weed till the whole mass was
+exposed, placed his arms around it, and partly lifted it.
+
+"Dere is more'n a hundredweight," he chuckled, as he looked up at Mrs.
+Lester, who was now also feeling excited. "Look at dis now."
+
+He cut out a slice of the curious-looking oleaginous stuff, struck a
+match and applied the light. A pale yellow flame was the result, and
+with it there came a strong but pleasant smell.
+
+Mrs. Lester had never heard of ambergris to her recollection, but Manuel
+now enlightened her as to its uses--the principal being as a developer
+of the strength of all other perfumes.
+
+Such a treasure could not be left where it was--exposed to the risk of
+being carried away by the tide so the negro at once went to work with
+his knife, catting it into three pieces, each of which he carried to
+the house, and put into an empty barrel. Then he returned and carefully
+searched for and picked up the minutest scraps which had broken off
+whilst he was cutting the "find" through.
+
+Just at sunset, Lester and his gang of burly helpers returned tired
+and hungry, but highly elated, for they had succeeded in getting out an
+unusual amount of valuable cargo.
+
+"We've had great luck to-day, Lucy," cried Lester, as he strode over the
+coarse grass in his high sea boots; "and, all going well, we shall make
+the first attempt to pull the ship off the day after to-morrow."
+
+"And I have had luck too," said his wife, her fair, sweet face, now
+bronzed by the sun, glowing as she spoke. "But come inside first, and
+then I'll tell you."
+
+The interior of the dwelling consisted of two rooms only--a small
+bedroom and a large living room which was also used as a kitchen. It
+was quite comfortably furnished with handsome chairs, lounges, chests of
+drawers, and other articles taken from the cabin of the stranded ship.
+The centre of the room was occupied by a large deal table made by one
+of the men, and a huge fire of drift timber blazed merrily at one end.
+Manuel was laying the table, his black face beaming with sup-pressed
+excitement, and the rough, sea-booted wreckers entered one by one and
+sat down. Mrs. Lester bade them smoke if they wished.
+
+"Well, boys," said their leader to the wrecking party--of whom there
+were thirty--"we all deserve a drink before supper. Help yourselves to
+whatever you like," and he pointed to a small side-table covered with
+bottles of spirits and glasses. Then Lucy, after they had all satisfied
+themselves, walked over to the cask containing her "find," and standing
+beside it, asked if they would all come and look at the contents and see
+if they knew what it was. Lester, thinking she had succeeded in catching
+a young seal, looked on with an amused smile.
+
+One by one the men came and looked inside the cask, felt the greasy mass
+with their horny fingers, and each shook his head until the tenth man,
+who, the moment he saw it, gave a shout.
+
+"Why, I'm blest if it ain't ambow-grease!"
+
+Lester started. "Ambergris! Nonsense!" and then he too uttered a cry
+of astonishment as a second man--an old whaler--darted in front of him,
+and, pinching off a piece of the "find," smelt it.
+
+"Hamble-grist it is, sir," he cried, "and the cask is chock-full of it."
+
+"Turn it out on the floor," said Lester, who knew the enormous value of
+ambergris, "and let us get a good look at it. Light all the lamps, Lucy."
+
+The lamps were lit, and then Manuel repeated his experiment by burning
+a piece, amid breathless excitement. No further doubt could exist, and
+then Manuel, taking a spring balance (weighing up to 50 lbs.) from
+the wall, hung it to a rafter, whilst the men put the lot into three
+separate bags and suspended them to the hook in turn.
+
+"Forty-five pounds," cried the mate of the Dolphin, as the first bag was
+hooked on. "Come on with the next one."
+
+"Thirty-nine pounds."
+
+"_And_ thirty-four pounds makes a hundred and eighteen," said Lester,
+bending down and eagerly examining the dial.
+
+"How much is it worth, skipper?" asked the tug's engineer.
+
+"Not less than L1 an ounce----"
+
+"No, sah," cried Manuel, with an _ex cathedra_ air, "twenty-two
+shillings, sah. Dat's what the captain of de _Fanny Long_ Hobart Town
+whaleship got fo' a piece eleven poun' weight in Sydney last June. And
+I hear de boys sayin' dat he would hab got L1 5s. only dat dere was a
+power of squids' beaks in it--and dere's not many in dis lot, so it's
+gwine to bring more."
+
+He explained that the pieces of black shell, which looked like broken
+mussel shells, were in reality the beaks of the squid, upon which the
+sperm whale feeds. Then, for the benefit of those of the party, he and
+the two other ex-whalemen described the cause of the formation of this
+peculiar substance in the body of the sperm whale.
+
+Lester took pencil and paper and made a rapid calculation.
+
+"Boys, we'll say that this greasy-looking staff is worth only a pound an
+ounce--though I don't doubt that Manuel is right. Well, at L1 an ounce,
+it comes to eighteen hundred and eighty-eight pounds."
+
+"Hurrah for Mrs. Lester!" cried Lindley, the mate.
+
+"She has brought us luck from the first, and now she has luck herself."
+
+The men cheered her again and again, for there was not one of them that
+had not a rough affection for their captain's violet-eyed wife. They
+had admired her for her pluck even in making the voyage to this desolate
+spot, and her constant cheerfulness and her kindness and attention in
+nursing three of them who had been seriously ill cemented their feelings
+of devotion to her. There was a happy supper party in "Wreck House"---as
+Lucy had named her strangely-built abode--that night, and it was not
+until the small hours of the morning that the men went off to sleep on
+the tug, and left Lucy and her husband to themselves.
+
+"I'm too excited to sleep now, Tom," she said. "Come, I must show you
+the place where I found it. It is not a bit cold. And oh! Tom, I'm
+beginning to love this lonely island, and the rough life, and the
+tame seals, and the wild goats, and the fowls, and black Manuel, and,
+and--oh, everything! And look, Tom dear, over there at the lighthouse
+at Deal Island. I really believe the light was never shining as it is
+to-night. Oh! all the world is bright to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Two days later, and after nearly fifteen weeks of arduous and
+unremitting labour, there came, one calm night, a glorious spring tide,
+and the _Dolphin_, under a full head of steam, and with her stout, broad
+frame quivering and throbbing and panting, tugged away at the giant hulk
+of the stranded ship; and the ship's own donkey engine and winch wheezed
+and groaned as it slowly brought in inch by inch a heavy coir hawser
+made fast to a rock half a cable length ahead of the tug. And then the
+_Braybrook Castle_ began to move, and the wrecking gang cheered and
+cheered until they were hoarse, and the second engineer of the tug and
+two stokers, stripped to their waists, with the perspiration streaming
+down their roasting bodies, answered with a yell--and then, lying well
+over on her starboard bilge, the great ship slid off stern first into
+deep water, and Tom Lester's heart leapt within him with joy and pride.
+
+Lucy, as excited as any one else, was on the bridge with him, her face
+aglow, and her hand on the lever of the engine-room telegraph.
+
+"Half-speed, Lucy."
+
+As the bell clanged loudly, and the heart of the sturdy tug beat less
+frantically, the wrecking gang on board the ship under Lindley slipped
+their end of the coir hawser from the winch barrel, and worked like
+madmen to get the ship on an even keel by cutting adrift the lashings of
+several hundred barrels of cement (part of the cargo) which were piled
+up on the starboard side of the main deck, and letting them plunge
+overboard As the ship righted herself inch by inch, and finally stood up
+on an even keel, Lester made an agreed-upon signal--blowing his whistle
+thrice--for Lindley to stand by his anchors, which were all ready to let
+go.
+
+His device of getting up the barrels of cement from the lower hold, and
+stowing them against the iron deck stanchions (having previously
+cut away the bulwark plates) so as to give the vessel a big cant to
+starboard, had answered perfectly; for, high as was the tide that night,
+the _Dolphin_, though so powerful, could not have moved a ship of 1,500
+tons with her keel still partly sustaining her weight on the rooks on
+which she had struck. By canting her as he had done, she had actually
+floated--and no more than floated--an hour before the tide was at its
+full.
+
+Half an hour later the _Braybrook Castle_ had been towed round to a
+little bay just abreast of "Wreck House," and the tug's engines stopped.
+
+"All ready, Lindley?" shouted Lester.
+
+"All ready sir."
+
+"Then let go."
+
+At a tap from Lindley's hammer, the great anchor plunged down, and the
+flaked out cable roared as it flew through the hawse-pipes, drowning the
+loud "Hurrah" of the men on board.
+
+"What is it, Lindley?" cried Lester, "ten fathoms?"
+
+"Twelve, sir."
+
+"Give her another twenty-five. It's good holding ground and there is
+plenty of room for her to swing. Lindley!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"We have had a bit of good luck, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir. That is because Mrs. Lester is on the tug. She brings us good
+luck."
+
+Lester laughed and turned to his wife. "Do you hear that, Lucy?"
+
+She was gazing intently over to the westward, but turned to him the
+moment he spoke.
+
+"Tom, I can see a blue light over there.... Ah, see, there is a rocket!
+What is it?"
+
+Lester took his night glasses and looked.
+
+"There is a ship ashore somewhere between here and the Deal Island
+light," he said, and then he rang, "Go astern," to the engine-room.
+
+"Lindley," he called as soon as the tug backed alongside the _Braybrook
+Castle_, "there is a ship ashore about four miles away from us to the
+westward. My wife noticed her signals a few minutes ago."
+
+"More salvage, sir," bawled Lindley, "Mrs. Lester is bringing us more
+luck. What's to be, sir?"
+
+"I want ten or a dozen men, and I'll go and see what I can do. You are
+all right, aren't you?"
+
+"Right as rain, sir."
+
+Fifteen, instead of a dozen men slid down a line on to the deck of the
+tug, and Lucy, at a nod from her husband, turned on "Full steam ahead,"
+and Lester whistled down the speaking-tube.
+
+"Hallo!" was the response.
+
+"Give it to her, Patterson, for all she's worth. There is a ship
+ashore about four miles away. She is burning blue lights and sending up
+rockets."
+
+Five minutes later, the Dolphin was tearing through the water at her top
+speed--eleven knots--and Patterson came up on the bridge.
+
+"Who saw the seegnals first?" he inquired.
+
+"I did, Mr. Patterson," said Lucy.
+
+"Ay, I thoct as much, Mistress Leslie. Even that lazy, sheeftless Irish
+fireman loon ae mine, Rafferty, said ye'd bring us mair guid luck." Then
+he dived below again to the engines so dear to his Scotsman's heart.
+
+The night was dark, but calm and windless, and the panting tug tore her
+way through a sea as smooth as glass towards where the ghastly glare of
+the last blue light had been seen. Twenty minutes later, Lester caught
+sight of the distressed ship. She was lying on her beam ends, and almost
+at the same moment came a loud hail--
+
+"Steamer ahoy!"
+
+"Clang!" went the telegraph, and the _Dolphin's_ engines stopped, and
+then went astern, just in time to save her from crashing into a boat
+crowded with men; a second boat was close astern of the first. They came
+alongside, and the occupants swarmed over the tug's low bulwarks, and an
+old greybearded man made his way up to Lester.
+
+"My cowardly crew have forced me to abandon my ship. We were caught in
+a squall yesterday, and thrown on our beam ends." Then he fell down in a
+fit.
+
+"Veer those boats astern," cried Lester to his own men, "I'm going to
+hook on to that ship!"
+
+Bailey, one of his best men, gave a yell.
+
+"More luck, boys. Mrs. Lester!"
+
+As the poor captain was carried off the bridge into the little cabin,
+the _Dolphin_ went ahead, and in a quarter of an hour, Bailey and his
+men had cut away the masts and the tug had the ship in tow.
+
+At daylight next morning Lester brought her into the little bay where
+the _Braybrook Castle_ lay, and Bailey anchored her safely.
+
+When Lester boarded her he found she was the _Harvest Queen_, sister
+ship to the _Harvest Maid_, _Harvester_, and his own last command, the
+_Harvest Home_, all ships of 1,500 tons, and belonging to Captain James
+Rodway.
+
+"Why didn't you cut away her masts?" he said to the unfortunate captain
+later on.
+
+"Ah, you don't know my owner," the old man replied, "and besides that, I
+could have righted the ship if my crew had stuck to me. But after being
+eighteen hours on our beam ends, they took fright and lowered the boats.
+I'm a ruined man."
+
+"Not at all. You have done your duty and I'll give you command of
+another ship to-day--the _Braybrook Castle_. You have nothing further to
+do with the _Harvest Queen_. She was an abandoned ship. She's mine now.
+Salvage, you know."
+
+The old man nodded his head. "Yes, I know that. And you'll make a pot
+oat of her."
+
+"What is she worth?"
+
+"Ship and cargo are worth L80,000. We loaded a general cargo in London."
+
+"That will be a bit of a knock for Rodway." "Do you know him?" asked
+Captain Blake in surprise.
+
+"I do indeed! I was master of the _Harvest Home_. Now come ashore. My
+wife is getting as something to eat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+At the end of another four weeks, the _Braybrook Castle_, with
+three-fourths of the cargo she had brought from London, sailed for
+Sydney under the command of Captain Blake of the _Harvest Queen_,
+and the _Harvest Queen_ under jury masts, and with her valuable cargo
+undamaged, was ready to sail, escorted by the _Dolphin_ on the following
+day, with Lindley as master.
+
+The last night at "Wreck House" was even a merrier and happier one than
+that on which the wrecking party celebrated Lucy's "find." But yet Lucy
+herself felt a little sad at saying farewell to this wild spot, where
+amid the roar of the ever-beating surf, and the clamour of the gulls
+and terns, she had spent the four happiest months of her life. The rough
+food, the fresh sea-air, and the active life had, Lester declared, only
+served to increase her beauty, and she herself had never felt so strong
+and in such robust health before. Almost every day in fine weather she
+had taken a walk to some part of the interior of the island, or along
+the many white beaches, filling a large basket with sea-birds' eggs, or
+collecting the many beautiful species of cowries and other sea-shells
+with which the beaches were strewn. Years before, another wrecking party
+had left some goats on the island, and these had thriven and increased
+amazingly. Her husband's men had shot a great number for food, and
+captured three or four, which supplied them with milk, and these latter,
+with their playful kids, and a number of fowls which had been brought
+from Sydney in the _Dolphin_, together with a pair of pet baby seals,
+made up what she called her "farmyard." On one part of the island there
+was a dense thicket of low trees, the resort not only of hundreds of
+wild goats, but of countless thousands of terns and other sea-birds, who
+had made it their breeding ground. It was situated at the head of a tiny
+landlocked bay, the beach of which was covered with the weather-worn
+spars and timbers of some great ship which had gone ashore there perhaps
+thirty or forty years before. The whole of the foreshores of the island,
+however, were alike in that respect, for it had proved fatal to many a
+good ship, even from the time that gallant navigator Matthew Flinders
+had first discovered the group.
+
+On the morning of the last day of the stay of the wrecking party on the
+island, Lucy set out for this place, remembering that on her last visit
+she had left a basket of cowries there. Bidding her beware of black
+snakes, for the place was noted for these deadly reptiles, Lester went
+off on board the _Harvest Queen_.
+
+An hour afterwards, as Lester was engaged with Lindley in the ship's
+cabin, a man on deck called down the skylight to him.
+
+"Here is Mrs. Lester coming back, sir. She's running, and is calling for
+you."
+
+With a dreadful fear that she had been bitten by a snake, Lester rushed
+on deck, jumped into a boat, and was ashore in a few minutes. Lucy, too
+exhausted to come down to the boat and meet him, had sat down in front
+of the now nearly empty house.
+
+"I'm all right, Tom," she panted, as he ran up to her, "but I've had a
+terrible fright," and she could not repress a shudder. "I have just seen
+three skeletons in the thicket scrub, and all about them are strewn all
+sorts of things, and there are two or three small kegs, one of which is
+filled with money, for the end has burst and the money has partly run
+out on the sand."
+
+Lester sprang to his feet, and called out to the two men who had pulled
+him ashore to come to him.
+
+"Mrs. Lester's luck again!" he cried.
+
+"Mrs. Lester's luck again!" bawled one of the men to the rest of the
+wrecking party on board the _Harvest Queen_, and in an instant the cry
+was taken up, and then came a loud cheer, as, disregarding discipline,
+all hands tumbled into a boat alongside, frantically eager to learn what
+had occurred.
+
+Lester waited for them, and then Lucy gave a more detailed account of
+how she made her discovery.
+
+"I found my basket where I had left it, and had just sat down to take
+off my shoes, which were filled with sand, when a goat with two of the
+sweetest little kids you ever saw in your life came suddenly out from
+behind a rock. The kids were not more than a day or two old, and I
+determined to catch at least one of them to take home. The moment the
+mother saw me she ran off with her babies, and I followed. They dived
+into the thicket, and led me _such_ a dance, for they ran much faster
+than I thought they could.
+
+"I had never been so far into the scrub before, and felt a little bit
+frightened--it was so dark and quiet--but I was too excited to give up,
+so on I sped until the nanny and kids ran into what seemed a tunnel in
+the thick scrub. It is really a road made by the goats and is only about
+three feet high, the branches and creepers making a regular archway
+overhead. I stooped down and followed, and in a few minutes came to a
+little space which was open to the sky; for the sunlight was so bright
+that, coming out of the dark tunnel place, I was quite dazzled for a few
+moments, and had to put my hands over my eyes.
+
+"When I looked about, I saw that the ground was strewed with all sorts
+of things--rotten boards and boxes, and ships' blocks, and empty bottles
+and demijohns, with all the cane covering gone. Then I saw the three
+kegs, and noticed one had burst open or rotted away, and that it was
+filled with what looked like very large and dirty nickel pennies. I went
+to it and took some up, and saw they were crown pieces! Of course, I was
+at once wildly excited, and thought no more of the dear little kiddies,
+when I heard one of them cry out--quite near--and saw it, lying down
+exhausted, about ten yards away. I was running over to it when I saw
+those three dreadful skeletons. They are lying quite close to each
+other, near some brass cannons and a lot of rusty ironwork. I was so
+terrified that I forgot all about the poor kid, and--and, well, that is
+all; and here I am with my skirt in rags, and my face scratched, and my
+hair loose, and 'all of a bobbery,' as Manuel says."
+
+"Boys," said Lester, "I'm pretty sure I know how those poor fellows'
+bones come to be there. An East Indiaman--the _Mountjoy_--was lost
+somewhere on the Kent Group about sixty years ago; and I have read that
+she had a lot of specie on board. Now, as soon as Mrs. Lester has rested
+a bit, we'll start."
+
+"I'll carry you, ma'am," said Bailey, a herculean creature of 6 ft. 6
+in., and stepping into "Wreck House" he brought out a chair, seated
+Lucy on it, and amidst applause and laughter, lifted it up on his mighty
+shoulders as if she was no more weight than the chair itself.
+
+She guided them to the spot, and within an hour, not only the three
+small casks--all of which were filled with English silver money, but
+the contents of two others, which were found lying partly buried in the
+sandy soil, were brought to the house. And then began the exciting task
+of counting the coins, which took some time, and when Lester announced
+the result, a rousing cheer broke from the men.
+
+"Six thousand, two hundred and seven pounds, four shillings, boys; all
+with the blessed picture of good old George the Third on them. Lucy, my
+dear, let us drink your health."
+
+Lucy drew him aside for a minute or two ere she complied with his
+request, and with sparkling eyes she talked earnestly to him.
+
+"Of course I will, dear," he said.
+
+"Now, hoys," he cried, as Lucy brought out two bottles of brandy, and
+some cups and glasses, "let us drink my wife's health. She has brought
+us good luck. And she and I are dividing a thousand pounds between you,
+with an extra fifty for Manuel; for I'm pretty well certain that the
+Home Government can't claim any royalty."
+
+The rough wreckers cheered and cheered again, as they drank to "Mrs.
+Lester's Luck." They were all being paid high wages, and were worth
+them, for they had toiled manfully, and the most pleasant relations had
+always existed between them and Lester.
+
+Immediately after breakfast on the following morning the anchors of the
+_Harvest Queen_ were weighed to the raising chanty of--
+
+"Hurrah, my boys, we're Homeward Bound!" and then the _Dolphin_, with
+Lester on the bridge and Lucy beside him at the telegraph, went ahead,
+and tautened out the tow line, and Lindley made all sail on his stumpy
+jury masts.
+
+Seventeen days later, the gallant little tug pulled the _Harvest Queen_
+into Sydney Harbour. "Mrs. Lester's Luck," had been with them the whole
+voyage, for from the time they had left Kent's Group, till they passed
+between Sydney Heads, nothing but fine weather and favourable winds had
+been experienced.
+
+As the _Dolphin_, with the hulking _Harvest Queen_ behind her, came up
+the smooth waters of the harbour to an anchorage off Garden Island, big
+Bailey, who was standing beside Lester and Lucy on the bridge, uttered a
+yell of delight.
+
+"Mrs. Lester's luck again, by all that's holy! There is the _Braybrook
+Castle_ at anchor over in Neutral Bay!"
+
+It was indeed the _Braybrook Castle_, which had arrived only one day
+previously, and when Lester went on shore a few hours later, he found
+that he was a richer man by over L17,000 than when he had left Sydney
+less than six months before.
+
+And "Mrs. Lester's Luck" brought happiness to many other people beside
+herself and her husband in the city of the Southern Sea, and when a year
+later, in England, she stood on a stage under the bows of a gallant ship
+of two thousand tons, built to Lester's order, and broke a bottle of
+Australian wine against her steel plates, she named her "The Lucy's
+Luck!"
+
+
+
+
+BULL-DOGS OF THE SEA
+
+Not many sea-going people--outside of professional whalemen or
+sealers--know much about the "killer" and his habits, and still less
+of his appearance. Yet this curious whale (for the killer is one of the
+minor-toothed whales) is known all over the world, though nowhere is
+it more plentiful than along the eastern and southern coasts of the
+Australian continent. In the colder seas of the northern part of the
+globe it is not uncommon; and only last year one was playing havoc,
+it was stated, with the fishermen's nets off the northeastern coast of
+Ireland.
+
+On the eastern seaboard of Australia, however, the killers can be
+watched at work, even from the shore, particularly from any bluff or
+headland from which a clear view can be obtained of the sea beneath, and
+should there be a westerly wind blowing, their slightest movements may
+be observed; particularly when they are "cruising," i.e., watching for
+the approach of a "pod" of either humpback or fin-back whales. During
+the prevalence of westerly winds the sea water becomes very clear, so
+clear that every rock and stone may be discerned at a depth of six
+or eight fathoms, and the killers, when waiting for their prey, will
+frequently come in directly beneath the cliffs and sometimes remain
+stationary for half an hour at a time, rolling over and over, or sunning
+themselves.
+
+First of all, let me describe the killer's appearance. They range in
+length from ten to twenty feet, have a corresponding girth, and show the
+greatest diversity of colouring and markings. Their anatomy is very much
+that of the sperm whale--the one member of the cetacean family which
+they do not attempt to attack on account of his enormous strength and
+formidable teeth--and they "breach," "spout" and "sound" like other
+whales. The jaws are set with teeth of from one or two inches in length,
+deeply imbedded in the jawbone, and when two of these creatures succeed
+in fastening themselves to the lips of a humpback, even fifty feet in
+length, they can always prevent him from "sounding" and escaping into
+deep water, for they cling to the unfortunate monster with bull-dog
+tenacity, leaving others of their party to rip the blubber from his
+sides and pendulous belly.
+
+On the coast of New South Wales--particularly at Twofold Bay, where
+there is a shore whaling station, there are two "pods" or communities
+of killers which have never left the vicinity within the memory of the
+oldest inhabitant, and indeed they were first noticed and written about
+in the year 1790. At other places on the Australian coast there are
+permanent pods of ten, fifteen or twenty, but those at Twofold Bay are
+quite famous, and every individual member of them is well-known, not
+only to the local whalemen, but to many of the other residents of
+Twofold Bay as well, and it would go hard with the man who attempted to
+either kill or injure one of any of the members of the two pods, for the
+whalemen would be unable to carry on their business were it not for
+the assistance rendered to them by their friends the killers, whose
+scientific name, by the way, is _Orca Gladiator_--and a more fitting
+appellation could never have been applied.
+
+Now as to the colouring and markings--which are not only diverse, but
+exceedingly curious. Some are of a uniform black, brown, dark grey, or
+dirty cream; others are black with either streaks or irregular patches
+of yellow, white or grey: others again are covered with patches of
+black, white or yellow, ranging in size from half a dozen inches in
+diameter to nearly a couple of feet. One which the present writer found
+lying dead on the reef of Nukulaelae Island, in the Ellice Group, was
+almost a jet black with the exception of some poorly defined white
+markings on the dorsal fin and belly; another which he saw accidentally
+killed by a bomb fired at a huge whale off the Bampton Shoals, was of a
+reddish-brown, with here and there almost true circular blotches of pure
+white. This poor fellow was twelve feet in length, and his death was
+caused by his frantic greediness to get at the whale and take his toll
+of blubber. The whale was struck late in the day, and the sea was so
+rough that the officer in charge, after having twice tried to get up and
+use his lance, determined to end the matter with a bomb before darkness
+came on. At this time there was a "pod" of seven killers running side by
+side with the whale and endeavouring to fasten to his lips whenever he
+came to the surface; and, just as the officer had succeeded in getting
+within firing distance and discharging the bomb, poor _Gladiator_ came
+in the way, and was killed by the shot, much to the regret of the boat's
+crew.
+
+For, as I have said, the whalemen--and particularly the shore whalemen,
+_i.e_., those who do their whaling from a station on shore--regard, and
+with good reason, the killers as invaluable allies. Especially is this
+so in the case of the Twofold Bay shore whalers, for out of every ten
+whales killed during the season, whether humpbacks, "right" whales, or
+finbacks, three-fourths are captured through the pack of killers seizing
+and literally holding them till the boats come up and end the mighty
+creatures' miseries.
+
+Towards the end of winter an enormous number of whales appear on the
+Australian coast, coming from the cold Antarctic seas, and travelling
+northward along the land towards the breeding grounds--the Bampton
+and Bellona Shoals and the Chesterfield Groups, situated between New
+Caledonia and the Australian mainland, between 17 deg. and 20 deg. S. The
+majority of these whales strike the land about Cape Howe and Gabo Island
+at the boundary line between New South Wales and Victoria--sixty miles
+south of Twofold Bay. Most of them are finbacks, though these are always
+accompanied by numbers of humpbacks and a few "right" whales--the most
+valuable of all the southern cetacea except the spermaceti or cachalot.
+The latter, however, though they will travel in company with the flying
+finback and the timid humpback and "right" whale, has no fear of the
+killers. He is too enormously strong, and could crush even a full-grown
+killer to a pulp between his mighty jaws were he molested, and
+consequently the killers give the cachalot a wide berth as a dangerous
+customer. The finback, however, swift and lengthy as he is, seldom
+manages to escape once he is "bailed up," and having no weapon of
+defence except his flukes (for he is one of the baleen or toothless
+whales), he has but one chance of his life, and that is to dive to such
+a depth that his assailants have to let go their hold of him in order to
+ascend to the surface to breathe.
+
+The finback, I must mention, although the most plentiful of all the
+whale family, and sometimes attaining the length of ninety feet, is
+never attacked by whale-boats when he is "loose," _i.e._, free, and
+is only captured when his struggles with the ferocious killers have so
+exhausted him that a boat can approach and dart a harpoon into or lance
+him. The reason for this immunity of primary attack by boats is that the
+finback is in the first place of little value when compared to either
+the humpback or "right" whale, for the coating of blubber is thin, and
+the plates of baleen (or whalebone) he possesses are very short; and in
+the second place he is, although so timid a creature, too dangerous to
+be struck with a harpoon, for he would take the entire whale-line out of
+three or four boats and then get away with it after all, for it is the
+swiftest of all the cetacean family, and all whalemen say that no
+one but a stark lunatic would dream of putting an iron into a loose
+"finner," such as ranges the Southern Ocean. I was told, however, of
+one well-authenticated case off the Azores, where a reckless Portuguese
+shore-whaler struck a bull finback, which, after taking the lines from
+four boats (220 fathoms in each) towed them for three hours and then got
+away, the line having to be cut owing to the creature sounding to such
+an enormous depth that no more line was available.
+
+The shore whaling parties at Twofold Bay, however, run no risks of this
+sort. They let their friends, the Gladiators, do most of the work, and
+find that "fin-backing" under these circumstances is fairly profitable,
+inasmuch as they can tow the carcase ashore, and "try out" the blubber
+at their leisure.
+
+But, in a case where one of these finbacks is held by killers, it can
+be approached, as I have said, by shore boats and killed, as is the
+practice of the Twofold Bay whalemen.
+
+Let the writer now quote, with the publisher's permission, from a work
+he wrote some years ago describing the way the killers "work in" with
+their human friends. In this particular instance, however, it was a
+humpback whale, but as _Orca Gladiator_ treats the humpback and "right"
+whale as he does the lengthy "finner," the extract from the article is
+quite applicable.
+
+"Let us imagine a warm, sunny day in August at Twofold Bay. The man who
+is on the look-out at the abandoned old lighthouse built by one Ben Boyd
+on the southern headland fifty years ago, paces to and fro on the grassy
+sward, stopping now and then to scan the wide expanse of ocean with
+his glass, for the spout of a whale is hard to discern at more than
+two miles if the weather is misty or rainy. But if the creature is in a
+playful mood, and 'breaches'--that is, springs bodily out of the water,
+and falling back, sends up a white volume of foam and spray, like the
+discharge of a submarine mine, you can see it eight miles away.
+
+"The two boats are always in readiness at the trying-out works, a mile
+or so up the harbour; so too are the killers, and the look-out man,
+walking to the verge of the cliff, gazes down.
+
+"There they are, cruising slowly up and down, close in shore, spouting
+lazily, and showing their wet, gleaming backs and gaff-topsail-like
+dorsal fins as they rise, roll, and dive again.... Some of them have
+nicknames, and each is well known to his human friends.
+
+"Presently the watchman sees, away to the southward, a white, misty
+puff, then another, and another. In an instant he brings his glass to
+bear. 'Humpback!' Quickly two flags flutter from the flagpole, and a
+fire is lit; and as the flags and smoke are seen, the waiting boats'
+crews at the trying-out station are galvanised into life by the cry
+of 'Rush, ho, lads! Humpbacks in sight, steering north-west! Rush and
+tumble into the boats and away!'
+
+"Round the south head sweeps the first boat, the second following more
+leisurely, for she is only a 'pickup' or relief, in case the first is
+'fluked' and the crew are tossed high in air, with their boat crushed
+into matchwood, or meets with some other disaster. And as the leading
+boat rises to the long ocean swell of the offing, the killers close in
+round her on either side, just keeping clear of the sweep of the oars,
+and 'breaching' and leaping and spouting with the anticipative zest of
+the coming bloody fray.
+
+"'Easy, lads, easy!' says the old boat-header; 'they are coming right
+down on us. Billy has right. They're humpbacks, sure enough!'
+
+"The panting oarsmen pull a slower stroke, and then, as they watch the
+great savage creatures which swim alongside, they laugh in the mirthless
+manner peculiar to most native-born Australians, for suddenly, with a
+last sharp spurt of vapour, the killers dive and disappear into the dark
+blue beneath; for they have heard the whales, and, as is their custom,
+have gone ahead of the boat, rushing swiftly on below fully fifty
+fathoms deep. Fifteen minutes later they rise to the surface in the
+midst of the humpbacks, and half a square acre of ocean is turned into a
+white, swirling cauldron of foam and leaping spray. The bull-dogs of the
+sea have seized the largest whale of the pod or school--a bull--and are
+holding him for the boat and for the deadly lance of his human foes.
+The rest of the humpbacks rise high their mighty flukes and 'sound'
+a hundred--two hundred--fathoms down, and, speeding seaward, leave the
+unfortunate bull to his dreadful fate.
+
+("And in truth it is a dreadful fate, and the writer of this sketch can
+never forget one day, as he and a little girl of six watched, from a
+grassy headland on the coast of New South Wales, the slaughter of a
+monstrous whale by a drove of killers, that the child wept and shuddered
+and hid her face against his shoulder.)
+
+"Banging swiftly alongside of him, from his great head down to the
+'small' of his back, the fierce killers seize his body in their savage
+jaws and tear great strips of blubber from off his writhing sides in
+huge mouthfuls, and then jerking the masses aside, take another and
+another bite. In vain he sweeps his flukes with fearful strokes from
+side to side--the bull-dogs of the sea come not within their range; in
+vain he tries to 'sound'--there is a devil on each side of his jaws,
+their cruel teeth fixed firmly into his huge lips; perhaps two or three
+are underneath him tearing and riving at the great rough corrugations of
+his grey-white belly; whilst others, with a few swift, vertical strokes
+of their flukes, draw back for fifty feet or so, charge him amidships,
+and strike him fearful blows on the ribs with their bony heads. Round
+and round, in ever-narrowing circles as his strength fails, the tortured
+humpback swims, sometimes turning on his back or side, but failing,
+failing fast.
+
+"'He's done for, lads. Pull up; stand up, Jim.'
+
+"The boat dashes up, and Jim, the man who is pulling bow oar, picks up
+his harpoon. A minute later it flies from his hand, and is buried deep
+into the body of the quivering animal, cutting through the thick blubber
+as a razor would cut through the skin of a drum.
+
+"'Stern all!' and the harpooner tumbles aft and grips the steer oar,
+and the steersman takes his place in the head of the boat and seizes his
+keen-edged lance. But 'humpy' is almost spent, and though by a mighty
+effort he 'ups flukes' and sounds, he soon rises, for the killers
+thrust him upwards to the surface again. Then the flashing lance--two,
+three swift thrusts into his 'life' a gushing torrent of hot, dark
+blood, and he rolls oyer on his side, an agonised trembling quivers
+through his vast frame, the battle is oyer and his life is gone.
+
+"And now comes the curious and yet absolutely truly described final part
+that the killers play in this ocean tragedy. They, the moment the whale
+is dead, close around him, and fastening their teeth into his body,
+by main strength bear it to the bottom. Here--if they have not already
+accomplished it--they tear out the tongue, and eat about one-third of
+the blubber. In from thirty-six to forty hours the carcase will again
+rise to the surface, and as, before he was taken down, the whalemen
+haye attached a line and buoy to the body, its whereabouts are easily
+discerned from the look-out on the headland; the boats again put off and
+tow it ashore to the trying-out works. The killers, though they haye had
+their fill of blubber, accompany the boats to the head of the bay and
+keep off the sharks, which would otherwise strip off all the remaining
+blubber from the carcase before it had reached the shore. But once the
+boats are in the shallow water, the killers stop, and then with a final
+'puff! puff!' of farewell to their human friends, turn and head seaward
+to resume their ceaseless watch and patrol of the ocean.
+
+"The killers never hurt a man. Time after time haye boats been stove in
+or smashed into splinters by a whale, either by an accidental blow from
+his head or a sudden lateral sweep of his monstrous flukes, and the
+crew left struggling in the water or clinging to the oars and pieces of
+wreckage; and the killers have swum up to, looked at, and smelt them,
+but never have they touched a man with intent to do him harm. And
+wherever the killers are, the sharks are not, for Jack Shark dreads a
+killer as the devil is said to dread holy water. Sometimes I have
+seen 'Jack' make a rush in between the killers, and rip off a piece of
+hanging blubber, but he will carefully watch his chance to do so."
+
+  *             *             *             *             *
+
+One of the most experienced whaling masters of New Bedford, with whom
+the writer once cruised from the Gilbert Islands to Tap in the Western
+Carolines, told him that on one occasion when he was coming from the
+shore to his ship, which was lying to off the Chatham Islands, the boat
+was followed by a pack of five killers. They swam within touch of the
+oars, much to the amusement of the crew, and presently several of what
+are called "right whale" porpoises made their appearance, racing along
+ahead of the boat, whereupon Captain Allen went for'ard and picked up
+a harpoon, for the flesh of this rare variety of porpoise is highly
+prized. The moment he struck the fish it set off at a great rate, but
+not quick enough to escape the killers, for though the porpoise was
+much the swifter fish (were it loose), the weight of the boat and fifty
+fathoms of line was a heavy handicap. As quickly as possible the men
+began hauling up to the stricken fish so that Allen might give it the
+lance, when to their astonishment the killers seized it and literally
+tore it to pieces in a few minutes.
+
+"If ever I felt mad enough to put an iron into a 'killer' it was then,"
+he said, "but I couldn't do it. And very glad of it I was afterwards,
+for a week later I had two boats stove in by a whale, and of course, had
+I hurt one of those beggars of killers, the whole crew would have said
+it was only a just retribution."
+
+
+
+
+"REVENGE"
+
+On that fever-stricken part of the coast of the great island of New
+Britain, lying between the current-swept headland of Gape Stephens and
+the deep forest-clad shores of Kabaira Bay, there is a high grassy bluff
+dotted here and there with isolated coco-palms leaning northward to the
+sea beneath, their broad branches restlessly whipping and bending to
+the boisterous trade wind. On the western side of the bluff there is a
+narrow strip of littoral, less than half a mile in width, and thickly
+clothed with a grove of betel nut, through which the clear waters of a
+mountain stream flow swiftly out oceanwards across a rocky bar.
+
+Near where the margin of the grove of straight, grey-boled betels touch
+the steep side of the bluff, there may be seen the outline of a low wall
+of coral stones, forming three sides of a square, and bound and knit
+together with vines, creepers, and dank, ill-smelling moss--the growth,
+decay, and re-growth of three score years. The ground which it encloses
+is soft and swampy, for the serried lines of betel-trees, with their
+thick, broad crowns, prevent either sun or wind from penetrating to the
+spot, and the heavy tropical rains never permit it to dry. It is a dark,
+dismal-looking place, only visited by the savage inhabitants when they
+come to collect the areca-nuts, and its solitude is undisturbed save
+by the flapping of the hornbill's wings as he carries food to his
+imprisoned mate, or the harsh screech of a white cockatoo flying
+overhead to the mountain forest beyond.
+
+Yet sixty years ago it was not so, for then on the shore facing the bar
+stood a native village, and within the now rained wall were the houses
+of three white men, who from their doorways could see the blue Pacific,
+and the long curve of coast line with cape and headland and white line
+of reef stretching away down to the westward in the misty tropic haze.
+
+Walk inside the old, broken walls, and you will see, half-buried in the
+moist, steaming, and malarious ground, some traces of those who dwelt
+there--a piece of chain cable, two or three whaler's trypots, a rotten
+and mossgrown block or two, only the hardwood sheaves of which have
+resisted the destroying influences of the climate; a boat anchor, and
+farther towards the creek, the mouldering remains of a capstan, from the
+drumhead holes of which long grey-green pendants of moss droop down upon
+the weather-worn, decaying barrel, like the scanty ragged beard that
+falls on the chest of some old man worn out with poverty and toil.
+
+That is all that one may see now; for the dense, evergrowing jungle has
+long since hidden or rotted all else that was left.
+
+  *             *              *             *             *
+
+The three men were named Ford, Adams, and Stenhouse. They were
+_beche-de-mer_ fishers, and for nearly a year had been living in this
+savage spot--the only white men inhabiting the great island, whose
+northern coast line sweeps in an irregular half-moon curve for more
+than three hundred miles from Cape Stephens to within sight of the
+lofty mountains of New Guinea. In pursuit of their avocation, death from
+disease, or from the spears or clubs of the treacherous, betel-chewing,
+stark-naked cannibals among whom they dwelt was ever near, but to the
+men of their iron resolution and dauntless courage that mattered not.
+Two years' labour meant for them a large sum of money--enough to enable
+them to return with their wives and families and native dependents, to
+those more restful islands in the Western Carolines whence they had come
+a year before.
+
+All three men were employed by one firm in Singapore, whose ship had
+brought them with their families and some thirty or forty natives of Yap
+to New Britain. Nine months after their landing, a small schooner had
+called to replenish their supplies, and ship the cured trepang, which
+by the most assiduous labour and daring enterprise they had accumulated;
+and when this story opens, the schooner had been gone some weeks, and
+they and their native workers were preparing their boats for another
+cruise along the great barrier reef of New Britain.
+
+Two of these men, Adams and Stenhouse, were old and tried comrades, and
+in their rough way, devoted to each other. Stenhouse, the elder of
+the two, had some ten years previously, while sailing along the Pelew
+Island, found Adams adrift in an open boat--the sole survivor of a
+shipwrecked crew of sixteen men, and had nursed him back to life and
+reason. Later on, Adams had married one of Stenhouse's half-caste
+daughters. Ford, too, who was an American, was connected by marriage
+with Stenhouse, and nearly every one of the thirty or forty male and
+female Caroline Islanders who worked for the three white men were more
+or less allied to their wives by ties of blood or marriage, and there
+was not one of them who would not have yielded up his or her life in
+their defence.
+
+Stenhouse, who was the leader of the adventurous party, was a man of
+about forty-five years of age, and, like his two comrades, an ex-sailor.
+He was nearly six feet in height, and possessed of such powers of
+strength and endurance that his name was known throughout the Western
+Pacific to almost every white man, but his once handsome features were
+marred by such a terrible disfigurement, that those who came to know
+the man and his sterling character always thought or spoke of him with
+genuine and respectful pity. What had caused this cruel distortion was
+known to but three other persons besides himself--the mother of his
+children, his son-in-law, Thomas Adams, and the man who had inflicted
+the injury; and to spare the reader's feelings as much as possible, it
+need only be said that the left side of his face had been so injured by
+violence of some kind as to be pitiful to look upon, the more so as the
+eye was missing.
+
+  *             *             *             *             *
+
+Late one evening, just as Stenhouse and his son-in-law, Adams, were
+smoking their last pipes before tarning in, their comrade entered the
+house hurriedly, accompanied by one of their native employees, who had
+been away on a fishing excursion.
+
+"Here's news! There's a big full-rigged ship just anchored under Cape
+Stephens. Masik boarded her, and had a yarn with the mate."
+
+"Where is she from?" asked Stenhouse, turning his one eye upon the
+native, Masik.
+
+"I know not, master. But she is a great ship with many men on
+board--some white, and some yellow, with shaven heads.
+
+"Ah, a Calcutta-Sydney ship, most likely," said Stenhouse to his
+comrades. Then turning to Masik--"Why came she here? Didst ask?"
+
+"Aye," replied the man in his native tongue; "the ship came here because
+there be many sick, and two dead men on board. It is a strong sickness."
+
+"Didst speak of us white men here?"
+
+The man nodded. "Aye, and the mate said that the captain would like thee
+all to come to the ship; but to hasten, for when the two men are buried
+to-morrow the ship will sail And the mate gave me these for thee."
+
+Adams eagerly extended his hand for a bundle of newspapers which Masik
+carried wrapped up in a piece of old sail-cloth.
+
+"This is a god-send," said Adams, as he opened the packet and tossed
+some of the papers to Stenhouse and Ford, "only about six months old.
+Hallo, here's the name of the ship and captain I suppose, on one of
+them:
+
+Roger Fullerton, Esq., Ship _Ramillies_------"
+
+"_What!_"
+
+It was Stenhonse who spoke, and his usual cheerful voice now sounded
+cracked and discordant, as with an oath he tore the paper from his
+comrade's hand, read the name, and then sat down, with one hand pressed
+to his sightless orb, his whole frame trembling from head to foot.
+
+"What is the matter, Ted?" asked Ford anxiously.
+
+Slowly he turned his face towards his comrades. It was white.
+
+"Send them away," he said, "but tell them to call the others and get
+ready. I am going down to the cape to-night, to that ship. I am going to
+kill a man."
+
+Ford looked at him wonderingly. Adams, who understood, spoke a few
+whispered words to the natives, who quickly left the room.
+
+"Tom."
+
+"Yes, Ted."
+
+"Are all the women and children asleep?"
+
+Adams nodded, and Stenhouse silently motioned to him and Ford to be
+seated. He remained standing.
+
+"Jim Ford," he said quietly, "look at me"--he drew his hand down the
+distorted side of his face--"and tell me what you would do to a man who
+made you look like this."
+
+"I would have his life if I swung for it."
+
+"Well, I am going to have this man's life. I shall not be hanged for it,
+but if I am killed, I look to you, Jim, and you Tom, to stand to my wife
+and children."
+
+Ford put out his hand impulsively: "All that I have I owe to you, Ted. I
+will stand to 'em, so help me God."
+
+"I knew you would. Now, only three people in the world besides me--Tom
+Adams, my wife, and the man who did it--know what made me the blarsted
+scarecrow I am; but as I may be a dead man by this time tomorrow, I'll
+tell you."
+
+He paused, and with his forefinger still pressed firmly on the name on
+the newspaper, said slowly:--
+
+"This man, Roger Fullerton, was a passenger on the _Mahratta_, East
+Indiaman. I was his servant. We were bound to Sydney from Table Bay. He
+was going out to be Commissary-General or something of that kind in New
+South Wales. We had a rough, mutinous crew on board, and one night there
+was a fight between them and the officers and passengers. They burst
+into the cabin, and would have captured the ship but for the mate,
+who shot one man dead and cut another down. I had nothing to do with
+them--as God is my witness--for I was only a lad of nineteen, and
+would have stood to the captain and officers like a man, but I was made
+prisoner by the mutineers early in the fight. After the row was over,
+Mr. Fullerton missed his watch and a hundred sovereigns which were in
+a writing case in his cabin. He accused me of stealing them, and when
+I hotly denied the charge, knocked me down on deck and kicked me so
+savagely in the face that I should have been killed if I had not been
+dragged away from him. As it was, he broke my jaw and destroyed my left
+eye. But that was not all. When he reached Sydney he charged me with
+the theft. I got a heavy sentence and was sent to the coal-mines at
+Newcastle; but after two years of hell I escaped by stowing away in a
+Dutch barque bound to Samarang. And now _my_ turn has come."
+
+"Are you sure he is the man?" asked the American.
+
+"Quite. He settled in the Colony and married there. I have heard of him
+from time to time for many years."
+
+  *            *            *            *            *
+
+Before midnight the three white men, with twenty-five of their native
+followers armed with muskets and cutlasses, were following the coastline
+in the direction of Gape Stephens. The night was dark and rainy, but the
+route was familiar to both Adams and Stenhouse. All night they marched
+steadily onward, and only when daylight broke did they halt on the banks
+of a stream to rest and eat. Then, crossing the stream, they struck a
+native path which led to the shore.
+
+"There she is," said Ford.
+
+The ship lay about a mile from the shore. Stenhouse looked at her
+earnestly, and then abruptly told his comrades his plans, which were
+daring but simple. He would await the landing of the boat bringing the
+dead men ashore for burial, and take them prisoners. In all probability
+the captain would be in charge, and it was Stenhouse's intention to hold
+him and his boat's crew as ransom for the man he wanted. He intended
+no harm to them, but was determined to achieve his object if he had
+to carry his prisoners off to the mountains, and keep them there till
+Fullerton was given up to him.
+
+Immediately after breakfast, the watchers saw two boats leave the ship,
+and pull in towards a creek which debouched into a sandy cove situated
+immediately under Gape Stephens. The coastline here was uninhabited,
+and except for the banks of the creek, which were heavily timbered,
+presented a succession of rolling, grassy downs, and here and there
+clumps of _vi_ (wild mango) and cedar trees, and Stenhouse felt pretty
+certain that the burying party would pick upon one of these spots to
+inter the bodies, and that he could easily cut them off from the boats.
+
+Swiftly and silently they took up a position on the banks of the creek,
+Stenhouse with his two friends keenly watching the advancing boats
+from behind the buttressed roots of a giant Indian fig-tree. In a few
+minutes, the leading boat, in which were six men and an officer, entered
+the creek, but the water being shallow, grounded on the bar, and the
+crew got out. The second boat contained four seamen, and three or four
+persons who were seated aft, and she too took the ground, and then,
+as her crew stepped out into the water, Stenhouse gripped Adams by the
+shoulder.
+
+"See, Tom, there he is! The man himself. Look! that big fellow with
+the white whiskers, sitting between the others." He held a hurried
+consultation with his comrades, and quickly decided on his course of
+action.
+
+Both crews were now endeavouring to drag the boats across the shallow
+bar into the deeper water beyond, but the task was too much for them,
+and presently the captain, who was in the second boat, ordered them to
+cease, and said something to the big, white-whiskered man, who nodded
+his head in approval.
+
+Four seamen then lifted two coffins from the first boat, and, followed
+by four others carrying their own and their shipmates' arms and some
+spades, began wading through the water to the shore, directly to where
+the unseen watchers lay awaiting; and the remainder of the party,
+leaving the boats with two men on guard, came slowly after them.
+
+Stenhouse pointed to the two boat-keepers, and said something to Ford,
+who, with half-a-dozen natives, quickly disappeared.
+
+In a few minutes the bearers of the coffins reached the shore, and
+placed their burdens on the ground to await further orders.
+
+"We shall find clear ground, sir, within a few yards from the bank,"
+began the captain, addressing the tall man, who with bared head and slow
+step walked by his side, when suddenly there came a rush of a score of
+half-naked figures, who threw themselves silently upon the party, and
+overcame them almost without a sound.
+
+"Surrender, or you are all dead men," cried a hoarse voice.
+
+There was no need for the stern summons, for not only were the
+astonished sailors terrified by the extraordinary suddenness of the
+attack and the savage appearance of their captors, but their captain,
+the surgeon, and the big man had their pistols taken from their belts so
+quickly that resistance was utterly out of the question, covered as they
+were by half-a-dozen muskets pointed at their breasts.
+
+Then Adams stepped out and addressed the captain. 804
+
+"No harm will be done to you and yonr men, but you must remain our
+prisoners for awhile. Then your arms will be returned to you, and you
+can go back to your ship. Your boat-keepers are secured."
+
+"What in God's name does this mean?" cried the unfortunate officer.
+
+"Silence, if you value yonr life," cried the same stern voice that had
+called upon them to surrender.
+
+The captain turned and sought to discern the speaker, but the muzzle
+of a pistol was placed menacingly against his chest, and he was again
+ordered to be silent.
+
+Then at a sign from Adams all the crews' and officers' arms were carried
+off to the boats by two natives, and the wondering seamen were bidden by
+Adams to lift the coffins and follow him.
+
+"Do not attempt to escape," he said, speaking to the whole party
+generally; "if you do you will be shot down without mercy."
+
+As he spoke Ford, with five armed natives, silently joined the rest of
+the captors. Follerton, the captain, and the surgeon all looked at him
+curiously.
+
+"March, gentlemen," he said, pointing with his drawn cutlass to the
+bearers of the coffins, who were now, guided by Adams, pushing their
+way through the timber, surrounded by their native guards with muskets
+cocked.
+
+In ten minutes the belt of timber had been passed through, and captors
+and captured emerged upon a grassy sward.
+
+"Halt!"
+
+Again that hoarse, strange voice sounded from somewhere near, and the
+seamen shuddered as they gently laid their burdens on the ground.
+
+"Bury your dead, sir, and have no fear," said Adams to the captain.
+
+Then he and Ford spoke to their followers, who silently drew back and
+permitted the seamen who carried shovels to advance. The ground was soft
+and moist, and their task was soon accomplished, and the coffins lowered
+into their graves.
+
+Then the captain, followed by the surgeon and Roger Fullerton, advanced,
+prayer-book in hand, and read the burial service, and Adams and Ford
+wondered somewhat when, at its conclusion, a heavy sob burst from
+Fullerton.
+
+Quickly the earth was shovelled in, and soon two mounds showed on
+the sward. Then came the clank of arms, and the mourners were again
+surrounded by their half-nude guards.
+
+"Follow," said Adams shortly.
+
+He led them for a distance of about a hundred yards, then halted, and
+the prisoners found themselves in a hollow square.
+
+"Are you going to slaughter unarmed men?" cried the surgeon, who was
+terrified at the very appearance of the wild-looking Caroline Islanders
+and their grim, silent leaders.
+
+Adams shook his head, but made no reply.
+
+A heavy footstep sounded in the jungle near them, and Stenhouse,
+carrying two cutlasses under his arm, strode into the square and stood
+before Fullerton.
+
+For a moment or two their eyes met, and then Stenhouse raised his hand
+and touched his distorted face.
+
+"You know me, Mr. Fullerton?"
+
+"I know you. You have come to kill me."
+
+"Yes, unless you kill me." He drew a cutlass from its leather sheath and
+held its hilt out to the man he hated. Fullerton folded his arms across
+his chest.
+
+"Take it," said Stenhouse slowly, "or, by Heavens! I'll cut you down as
+you stand."
+
+"As you will," replied the old man steadily, "but fight you I will not.
+My life is in your hands. Take it. I am not afraid to die."
+
+Stenhouse drew his cutlass slowly, his one eye shining with a deadly
+hatred.
+
+"For God's sake, man, whoever you are, whatever your injuries may be,
+do not shed the blood of an old man on his son's grave!" and the captain
+sprang forward with outspread, appealing hands.
+
+"His son!" and the point of the gleaming weapon drooped.
+
+"His only son. Have mercy on him, as you hope for mercy yourself."
+
+"Stop, Captain Marsland. Do not ask for mercy for me. I did this man a
+grievous wrong. My life is his. Let him have his due."
+
+Stenhouse threw down his cutlass with an oath, turned his back on his
+enemy, and put his hand to his forehead.
+
+Then he faced round sharply, and once more he looked into Fullerton's
+unmoved face.
+
+"Go," he said.
+
+And without another word he strode away, followed by his comrades and
+his savage companions.
+
+
+
+
+SAUNDERSON AND THE DYNAMITE
+
+Saunderson was one of those men who firmly believed that he knew
+everything, and exasperated people by telling them how to do things; and
+Denison, the supercargo of the _Palestine_, hated him most fervently for
+the continual trouble he was giving to every one, and also because he
+had brought a harmonium on board, and played dismal tunes on it every
+night and all day on Sundays. But, as Saunderson was one of the partners
+in the firm who owned the _Palestine_, Denison, and Packenham the
+skipper, had to suffer him in silence, and trust that something might
+happen to him before long. What irritated Denison more than anything
+else was that Saunderson frequently expressed the opinion that
+supercargoes were superfluous luxuries to owners, and that such work "as
+they tried to do could well be done by the captains, provided the latter
+were intelligent men."
+
+"Never mind, Tom," said Packenham hopefully, one day, "he's a big
+eater, and is bound to get the fever if we give him a fair show in the
+Solomons. Then we can dump him ashore at some missionary's--he and his
+infernal groan-box--and go back to Sydney without the beast."
+
+When the _Palestine_ arrived at Leone Bay, in Tutuila, Saunderson
+dressed himself beautifully and went ashore to the mission-house, and in
+the evening Mrs. O------ (the missionary's wife), wrote Denison a note
+and asked if he could spare a cheese from the ship's stores, and added a
+P.S., "What a _terrible_ bore he is!" This made the captain and himself
+feel better.
+
+The next morning Saunderson came on board. Denison was in the cabin,
+showing a trader named Rigby some samples of dynamite; the trader wanted
+a case or two of the dangerous compound to blow a boat passage through
+the reef opposite his house, and Denison was telling him how to use it.
+Of course Saunderson must interfere, and said _he_ would show Rigby what
+to do. He had never fired a charge of dynamite in his life, nor even
+seen one fired or a cartridge prepared, but had listened carefully to
+Denison. Then he sarcastically told Denison that the cheese he had sent
+Mrs. O------ might have passed for dynamite, it was so dry and
+tasteless.
+
+"Well, dynamite is made from cheese, you know," said the supercargo
+deferentially, "just cheese slightly impregnated with picric acid,
+gastrito-nepenthe, and cubes of oxalicogene."
+
+Saunderson said he knew that, and after telling Rigby that he would
+walk over to his station before dinner, and show him where to begin
+operations on the reef, went on shore again.
+
+About twelve o'clock Denison and Rigby went on shore to test the
+dynamite, fuse, and caps--first in the water and then on the reef.
+Just abreast of the mission-house they saw a big school of grey mullet
+swimming close in to the beach, and Denison quickly picked up a stone,
+tied it with some string round a cartridge, cut the fuse very short, lit
+it, and threw it in. There was a short fizz, then a dull, heavy thud,
+and up came hundreds of the beautiful fish stunned or dead. Saunderson
+came out of the mission-house and watched the natives collecting them.
+Denison had half-a-dozen cartridges in his hand; each one was tightly
+enveloped in many thicknesses of paper, seized round with twine, and had
+about six inches of fuse, with the ends carefully frayed out so as to
+light easily.
+
+"Give me some of those," said Saunderson.
+
+The supercargo reluctantly handed him two, and Saunderson remarked that
+they were very clumsily covered, but he would fix some more himself
+"properly" another time. Denison sulkily observed that he had no time
+to waste in making dynamite cartridges look pretty. Then, as Saunderson
+walked off, he called out and told him that if he was going to shoot
+fish he would want to put a good heavy stone on the cartridges.
+Saunderson said when he wanted advice from any one he would ask for
+it. Then he sent word by a native to Mrs. O------that he would send her
+along some fish in a few minutes.
+
+Now within a few hundred yards of the mission-house there was a jetty,
+and at the end of the jetty was Her Majesty's gunboat _Badger_, a small
+schooner-rigged wooden vessel commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Muddle,
+one of the most irascible men that ever breathed, and who had sat on
+more Consuls than any one else in the service.
+
+Sannderson went on the jetty followed by a crowd of natives, and looked
+over into the water. There were swarms of fish, just waiting to be
+dynamited. He told a native to bring him a stone, and one was brought--a
+nice round, heavy stone as smooth as a billiard ball--just the very
+wrong kind of stone. He tied it on the cartridge at last, after it had
+fallen off four or five times; then, as he did not smoke, and carried no
+matches, he lit it from a native woman's cigarette, and let it drop into
+the water. The stone promptly fell off, but the cartridge floated gaily,
+and drifted along fizzing in a contented sort of way. Sannderson put his
+hands on his hips, and watched it nonchalantly, oblivious of the fact
+that all the natives had bolted back to the shore to be out of danger,
+and watch things.
+
+There was a bit of a current, and the cartridge was carried along till
+it brought up gently against the _Badger_--just in a nice cosy place
+between the rudder bearding and the stern-post. Then it went off with a
+bang that shook the universe, and ripped off forty-two sheets of copper
+from the _Badger_; and Saunderson fell off the jetty into the water; and
+the bluejackets who were below came tumbling up on deck; and the
+gunner, seeing Lieutenant-Commander Muddle rush up from his cabin in his
+shirt-sleeves with a razor in his hand, thought that he had gone queer
+again in his head, and had tried to blow up the ship, and was going to
+out his throat, and so he rushed at him, and knocked him down and took
+his razor away, and begged him to be quiet; and Muddle, thinking it was
+a mutiny, nearly went into a fit, and straggled so desperately, and
+made such awful choking noises that two more men sat on him; and the
+navigating midshipman, thinking it was fire, told the bugler to sound
+to quarters, and then, seeing the captain being held down by three men,
+rushed to his assistance, but tripped over something or somebody and
+fell down and nearly broke his nose; and all the time Saunderson who
+was clinging to one of the jetty piles, was yelling pitifully for help,
+being horribly afraid of sharks.
+
+At last he was fished out by Bigby and some natives and carried up to
+the mission-house and then, when he was able to talk coherently, he
+sent for Denison, who told him that Commander Muddle was coming for him
+presently with a lot of armed men and a boatswain with a green bag in
+which was a "cat," and that he (Saunderson) would first be flogged and
+then hanged at the _Badger's_ yard-arm, and otherwise treated severely,
+for an attempt to blow up one of Her Majesty's ships; and then
+Saunderson shivered all over, and staggered out of the mission-house
+in a suit of Mr. O------'s pyjamas, much too large for him, and met
+Commander Muddle on the jetty and tried to explain how it occurred, and
+Muddle called him an infernal, drivelling idiot, and knocked him clean
+off the jetty into the water again, and used awful language, and told
+Denison that his chronometers were ruined, and the ship's timbers
+started, and that he had had a narrow escape from cutting his own throat
+when the dynamite went off, as he had just begun to shave.
+
+Saunderson was very ill after that, and was in such mortal terror that
+Muddle and every one else on board the gunboat meant to kill, wound, or
+seriously damage him, that he kept inside the mission-house, and said he
+felt he was dying, and that Mr. O------ would prepare him for the end.
+So Denison and Paekenham, who were now quite cheerful again, sent his
+traps and his harmonium ashore, and sailed without him, a great peace in
+their bosoms.
+
+
+
+
+THE STEALING OF SA LUIA
+
+One dull rainy morning, soon after daybreak, as the ship _St. George_ of
+New Bedford was cruising for sperm whales between the islands of Tucopia
+and Vanikoro, the look-out hailed the deck and reported a boat in sight.
+The captain was called, and a few minutes later appeared and went aloft.
+
+The boat was about three miles distant to leeward, and Captain
+Elphinstone at once kept the ship away. The wind, however, was so light
+that it took her some time to get within hailing distance, and then
+it was discovered that the boat contained three natives--a man and two
+young girls--who appeared to be greatly exhausted, for after
+feebly raising their heads for a moment and putting out their hands
+imploringly, they fell back again.
+
+A boat was quickly lowered from the ship, and the sufferers brought on
+board, and their own boat, which was a small, native-built craft much
+like a whale-boat, but with an outrigger attached, was hoisted on board,
+for she was too good to be turned adrift.
+
+On board the _St. George_ was a Samoan named Falaoa. He was a native
+of the island of Manua, and at once recognised the unfortunates as
+country-people of his own. The man, who was in a dreadful state of
+emaciation, and barely able to raise his voice above a whisper, was over
+six feet in height, and appeared to be about five-and-twenty years of
+age; his companions had evidently not undergone as much suffering and
+did not present the same shocking appearance as he, for the sun had
+burnt his skin to such a degree that that part of his tattooing which
+was not covered by the scanty _lava lava_ of tappa cloth around his
+loins had become almost black.
+
+Under the kind and careful treatment they received from Captain
+Elphinstone and his officers, all three soon recovered, and ten days
+after they had been rescued, the following entry was made in the ship's
+log:--"This day, at their own request, we landed the three Samoans at
+the island of Nufilole, one of the Swallow Group, where they were well
+received by the natives and a white trader. They were accompanied by one
+of my crew named Falaoa, who begged me to let him go with them, having
+become much attached to one of the young women. We gave them some arms
+and ammunition, and some clothing and tobacco. They all behaved with
+the greatest propriety during their stay on the ship. From where they
+started in Samoa to where we picked them up in 12 deg. S. is a distance of
+1,800 miles."
+
+And here is their story, told by Sa Luia to the wife of Frank Chesson, a
+white trader then living on the Santa Cruz Islands, in which the Swallow
+Group is included. Chesson himself had lived in Samoa, and spoke the
+language well, and the four people remained in his house for many months
+as welcome guests. A strong and lasting friendship was formed, and
+resulted in the trader, his wife and family, and the four Samoans
+removing to the little island of Fenua-loa, and there founding what
+is now a colony of Polynesians with language, customs and mode of life
+generally entirely distinct from their Melanesian neighbours.
+
+* * * * *
+
+I am Sa Luia. I come from Mulifanua, at the lee end of Upolu in Samoa.
+My father was not only the chief of Mulifanua, but has great lands in
+the Atua district on the north side of Upolu--lands which came to him
+through my mother, who died when I was but a week old--and from these
+lands he had his name, Pule-o-Vaitafe (Lord of many Rivers).
+
+Now it is not well for a daughter to speak unkindly of her father; but
+this what I now say is true. My father, though he was so rich a man, was
+very cruel to those who crossed his path, and though he was a brave man
+in battle, his heart was shrunken up by reason of his avarice and
+his desire to grow richer, and all Samoa, from Manna in the east to
+Falealupo in the west, spoke of him as Pule-lima-vale--"Pule the
+close-fisted"--or Pule fata-ma'a--"Pule the stony-hearted." Yet all this
+gave him no concern.
+
+"What does it matter to me?" he said to his brother Patiole one day,
+when Patiole, who was a chief of Manono, reproached him for his meanness
+in sending away some visitors from Tutuila with such scanty presents
+that all the people of Mulifanua were ashamed. "What does it matter to
+me what people say of me? This _malaga_ (party of visitors) from Tutuila
+are eaten up with poverty. Why should I give them fine mats, and muskets
+and powder and bullets? Am I a fool? What return can they make to me?"
+
+"They came to do thee honour," said my uncle, putting his hand across
+his eyes out of respect to my father, who was of higher rank than he,
+and speaking softly. "They are thy dead wife's relatives, and are of
+good blood. And thou hast shamed them--and thyself as well--by sending
+them away empty-handed."
+
+My father laughed scornfully. "What care I for my dead wife's relatives!
+I have no need of them, and want them not. When I took the daughter of
+Mauga to wife, Mauga was a great man. Now he and his people are broken
+and dispersed. Let them go and eat grass or wild yams like pigs. I,
+Pule-o-Vaitafe, want no needy dependents."
+
+"Thou art a hard man," said my uncle, bending his forehead to the mat on
+which he sat.
+
+"And thou art a fool," replied my father; "if thy heart pains thee of
+this, why dost thou not give them all that they wish?"
+
+"Because for me, thy brother, to do so, would put shame on thee, for
+'tis thy place and thy honour as head of our family to help these people
+who have fallen on evil days through warfare," said my uncle sadly.
+
+"Thine then be the place and the honour," said my father scornfully. "I
+will not begrudge thee either. Naught will I have to do with broken men.
+Farewell."
+
+That was my father's way. That was his hard, hard heart, which knew
+neither pity nor remorse. This is how my mother died:
+
+When I was seven days old, she took me, as is customary with a woman of
+chiefly rank, to the _fale siva_ (town dance house), where I had to be
+shown to the people, who brought fine mats and tappa cloth, and many
+other presents. Now my father was filled with anger that my mother had
+not borne him a male child, for a male child would have meant richer
+presents--not only from his own people, but from towns and villages far
+away. So when he saw that instead of such gifts as a new canoe or some
+very old, rare mats, or muskets, or such other things as would have
+been given were the child a boy, there were but the usual presents for a
+girl-child, his lips turned down with scorn, and he muttered a curse. My
+mother heard him and the tears flowed down her cheeks.
+
+"It may be that my next child will be a boy," she whispered, and then
+she held me up to my father. "See, Pule, though a girl, she hath thy
+features, and thou wilt come to love her."
+
+"Tah!" said my father in angry contempt; and without another word he
+rose and went away.
+
+Then my mother wept silently over me for a long time, for the shame put
+upon her was very great, and not to be endured. So, with some of her
+women, she took me to a place called Falema'a, where the cliffs rise up
+straight from the sea. Her hair was then oiled and dressed, and then
+she made gifts of her rings of gold and tortoise-shell to her women,
+and bade them farewell. Then she took me in her arms, and leapt over the
+cliff into the sea.
+
+It so happened that half-way down the cliff, which is twelve fathoms
+high, there was a boy named Manaia. He was collecting the eggs of the
+sea-bird called _Kanapu_ and his canoe was anchored just in front of the
+base of the cliff. He was a brave boy, and being of a very poor family,
+had clambered up the steep side of the wall of rock, so that he might
+find the _kanapu_ eggs in the clefts and holes, and sell them to people
+in exchange for food for his mother and sisters. As he clung to the
+jagged face of the rock, he saw my mother falling through the air, and
+in an instant he sprang after her. When she came to the surface, I was
+still clasped tightly in her arms, and Manaia cried to her to swim to
+the canoe.
+
+"Nay," she cried, "but take my babe."
+
+And so Manaia took me, and my mother threw up her arms and sank and
+died.
+
+When my uncle heard of this, he sent a party of his people over from
+Manono for me, and I was taken to live with him. My father did not
+interfere, for the manner of my mother's death had made the people
+murmur, and he was afraid that they might rise in rebellion, and kill
+or banish him. But yet he tried to get another rich wife, and sent a
+deputation of his chiefs to Seu Manu of Apia asking for his daughter
+Sina; and Sina sent him back a piece of wood carved in the semblance of
+a woman, together with a stone shaped like a heart, with this message--
+
+"This is a good wife for Pule-o-Vaitafe. If she displease him, he can
+sink her in the sea with a heart of stone."
+
+After that my father tried no more, for the people all round about were
+murmuring, and he began to feel afraid.
+
+But in no other way did he change, and although Manono is but two
+leagues distant from Mulifanua, he never came to see me till I was in
+my fifteenth year, and when I was chosen by the people of Aana to be
+_Taupo_{*} of Mulifanua. Then I had to leave my uncle, which made me
+weep, for although I was proud of the honour done me, I did not wish to
+leave him and go back to my father. But I had no choice but to obey, and
+so I was taken back to Mulifanua by a fleet of canoes and _taumualua_
+(native boats), with great ceremony, and then followed many meetings and
+much feasting and dancing. I was put under the care of two women, who
+attended me day and night, as is the custom; they walked, ate, and slept
+with me, and every day I was taught how to dance, and how to wear
+my fine mats and long train of tappa, so as to receive or call upon
+visitors who came to the town from other places in Samoa.
+
+     * Taupo, the town maid. This distinction is usually conf
+     erred on a girl of good family, and has many honours and
+     emoluments in the way of presents attached to it. In some
+     cases a _taupo_ will not marry till she reaches middle age,
+     and occasionally will remain single.
+
+In all the many years that I had spent on Manono, I had not once seen
+the boy Manaia--he who had taken me from the water--though I had heard
+of him as having been tattooed and grown into a tall man. But on the
+same day that I returned and was taken to the _fale taupule_ (council
+house) to be received by the people as their _taupo_, a girl named
+Selema who attended me whispered his name, and pointed him out to me.
+He was sitting with the other young men, and like them, dressed in his
+best, and carrying a musket and the long knife called _nifa oti_. I saw
+that he was very, very tall and strong, and Selema told me that there
+were many girls who desired him for a husband, though he was poor, and,
+it was known, was disliked by my father.
+
+Now this girl Selema, who was of my own age, was given to me as my
+especial _tavini_ (maid) and I grew to like her as my own sister. She
+told me that already my father was casting about in his mind for a rich
+husband for me, and that the man he most favoured was old Tamavili,
+chief of Tufa, in Savai'i, who would soon be sending messengers with
+presents to him, which if they were accepted, would mean that my father
+was inclined to his suit, and that he, Tamavili, would follow himself
+and pay court to me.
+
+All this frightened me, and I told Selema I would escape to my uncle in
+Manono, but she said that that would not do, as if he tried to protect
+me it would mean war. So I said nothing more, though much was in my
+mind, and I resolved to run away to the mountains, rather than be made
+to marry Tamavili, who was a very old man.
+
+One day Selema and I went to the river to wash our hair with the pith
+of the wild oranges. We sat on the smooth stones near the water, and had
+just begun to beat the oranges with pieces of wood to soften them, when
+we saw a man come down the bank and enter a deep pool further up the
+stream.
+
+"'Tis Manaia," said Selema; "he hath come to drag the pool for fish."
+Then she called out to him, "_Ola_, Manaia," and he looked at us and
+laughed as he spun his small hand-net into the pool. We sat and watched
+him and admired his strength and skill and the clever way in which he
+dived and took the fish from his net. In a little while he had caught
+seven--beautiful fish, such as are in all the mountain streams of Samoa.
+Then he came out of the water, made a basket of leaves, and approached
+me, and without a word, laid them at my feet. This pleased me, so I put
+out my hand and touched one of the fish--meaning that one only would I
+take.
+
+"They are all for thee, lady," he said in a low voice.
+
+Selema laughed and urged me to accept the gift; so I took the basket,
+and then, when I looked at his face and saw that his eyes were still
+turned down, I took courage and said--
+
+"Thou art Manaia. Dost thou remember me?"
+
+"How could I forget thee?" he replied; and then he raised his eyes to
+my face, and I felt glad, for they were like unto those of my uncle
+Patiole--kind and soft when they looked into those of a woman or child,
+but steady and bold to those of a man.
+
+"I am glad to see thee, Manaia," I said, "for I owe thee my life," and
+as he took my hand and pressed it to his forehead, Selema stole away and
+left us together.
+
+Now I know not what he said to me, except that when he spoke the name of
+Tamavili of Tufa, I wept, and said that I would I were back at Manono,
+and that I was but a child, and had no desire to be wedded to any man.
+Then he lifted me up in his great arms, and said--
+
+"I love thee, Sa Luia, I love thee! And even if thou canst not love me,
+yet shall I save thee from wedding this old dotard. Aye, I shall save
+thee from him as I saved thee from the boiling serf of Falema'a when thy
+mother, who was a great lady, cried out to me, 'Take my babe.'"
+
+So that is how Manaia my husband wooed me, and when Selema came back and
+saw us seated together, she laughed again, though tears were in her eyes
+when she took my feet and pressed them to her cheeks, for she feared
+that when we fled, she would be left behind. Then Manaia whispered to me
+and asked me if it was to my mind to take her.
+
+"Ay," I said; "else will my father kill her when we are gone."
+
+So we made our plans, and when the messengers of Tamavili came and laid
+their presents before me, I said I was content, and that they could go
+back to their master, and tell him that in a month's time I would
+be ready and that he could come for me. This pleased my father, and
+although at night time I always slept between the two women, as is
+customary for a _taupo_, with a mat over me, and they lay on the
+outside, one on each side, yet in the day time I often met my lover in
+the forest, whilst Selema kept watch.
+
+"We shall go to Uea,"{*} he said; "'tis but seventy leagues away, and so
+soon as the rainy season is ended we shall start. I have bought a small
+but good boat and have strengthened it for the voyage with an outrigger,
+and in my mother's house is hidden all the food we can carry. In eight
+days more the westerly winds will cease, and we shall start, for then we
+shall have the Matagi Toe'lau (trade wind) and at Uea we shall be
+safe and live in peace. Then some day I shall send for my mothers and
+sisters, for on the night that we escape, they too must flee for their
+lives to Sen Mann, of Apia, who will protect them from thy father's
+wrath."
+
+     * Wallis Island, two hundred miles from Samoa. Many Samoans
+     fled there for refuge after a reverse in battle or for other
+     causes.
+
+On the morning of the fourth day after this, there came a strange
+messenger to the town to see my father, who in a little time appeared at
+his door with a smiling face and bade the conch be blown to summon the
+people together.
+
+"Here is news, O people," he said. "Manka,{*} the white trader of Tufa,
+also seeketh my daughter, Sa Luia, in marriage. He and Tamayili have
+quarrelled--why, it matters not to me, or thee--and Manka, who is a very
+rich man, hath sent me word that he will compete with Tamayili. Whatever
+he offers for dowry and for presents to me, the white man will give
+double. This is a good day for me."
+
+     * Monk.
+
+But the people were silent, for they knew that he was breaking his
+pledged word with Tamavili, and was setting at naught the old customs
+and the honour of the town. So, as he looked at them, he scowled; then
+he held out his hand, on the palm of which were ten American gold coins,
+each of twenty dollars.
+
+"Two hundred dollars hath this white man, Manka, sent to my daughter Sa
+Luia as a present, with these words: 'If she cares not for my suit, well
+and good--let her have them made into bracelets for her pretty arms."
+
+Now this was a great gift, and it came with such generous words that the
+people applauded, and my father smiled, as his long thin fingers closed
+around the heap of gold; but suddenly his face darkened as Manaia spoke.
+
+"'Tis a free gift to the lady Sa Luia. Therefore, O Pule-o-Vaitafe, give
+it to her."
+
+"Aye, aye! 'tis hers, 'tis hers," cried the people.
+
+My father sent a glance of bitter hatred to my lover, and his lips
+twitched, but without a word he came to me, and bending low before me,
+put the money on the ground at my feet, and I, his daughter, heard his
+teeth grinding with rage, and as I felt his hot breath on my hand, I
+knew that murder was in his heart. It is easy for a chief such as was my
+father, to have a man who displeases him killed secretly.
+
+My father went away in anger, and then the chiefs decided that although
+the white man could not wed me, he should be received with great honour,
+and be given many presents; for he was known to us as a man of great
+strength and daring, and was tattooed like a Samoan, which is a great
+thing to the mind of a Samoan woman, who loathes an untattooed man as
+unworthy of all that a woman can give, for without tattooing a young man
+hath no manhood, and his children are weak of body and poor of mind.
+
+That night my father asked me for the money, which I gave him
+unwillingly, for I wished to send it back to the white man. He took
+it and placed it in a great box, which contained such things as guns,
+pistols, and powder and ball, and the key of which he always wore around
+his neck.
+
+When the eighth day dawned, the sea was very smooth, and our hearts were
+gladdened by seeing that the wind was from the south-east, and as the
+day wore on, it increased in strength. When night fell, and the evening
+fires were lit, Manaia, saying he was going to fish for _malau_,
+launched his boat and sailed along the shore for a league to the mouth
+of a small stream. Here he was met by his mother and sisters, who were
+awaiting him with baskets of cooked food, young coconuts and calabashes
+of water for the voyage. Then they put their arms around him, and wept
+as they bade him farewell, for seventy leagues is a long voyage for a
+small boat not intended for rough seas. Then they went into the forest
+and fled for their lives to Sen Manu of Apia, and Manaia waited for me.
+
+When the town was buried in slumber, Selema, who lay near me, touched my
+head with her foot, and then asked me if I slept.
+
+"Nay," I replied in a loud voice, and speaking with pretended anger, so
+as to awaken the two women between whom I lay. "How can I sleep? 'Tis
+too hot. Let us go to the beach awhile and feel the cool wind."
+
+The two women grumbled a little at being disturbed, and Selema and I
+rose and went out of the house. Then, once we were at a safe distance,
+we ran swiftly to the beach, and then onwards to where Manaia awaited
+us.
+
+Selema took her seat on the foremost thwart, Manaia at the stern, and I
+in the centre, and then we pushed off, and using canoe paddles, made for
+the passage through the reef out into the open sea. When the dawn broke,
+we were half-way across the straits which divide Savai'i from Upolu,
+and only two leagues away we saw the clustering houses of Tufa on the
+iron-bound coast. We did not dare to hoist the sail for fear of being
+seen, so continued to paddle, keeping well into the middle of the
+straits. Only that the current was so fierce, Manaia would have
+steered north, and gone round the great island of Savai'i and then made
+westward, but the current was setting against the wind, and we should
+have all perished had we tried to go the north way.
+
+Presently Manaia turned and looked astern, and there we saw the great
+mat sail of my father's double canoe, just rising above the water, and
+knew that we were pursued. So we ceased paddling, and hoisted our own
+sail, which made us leap along very quickly over the seas, though every
+now and then the outrigger would lift itself out of the water, and we
+feared that we might capsize. But we knew that Death was behind us, and
+so sat still, and no one spoke but in a whisper as we looked astern, and
+saw the sail of the great canoe growing higher and higher. It was a very
+large canoe and carried a hundred men, and on the raised platform was a
+cannon which my father had bought from a whale-ship when it was in his
+mind to fight against Tamalefaiga, who was the king of Upolu.
+
+Suddenly Selema cried out that she saw a _taumualua_{*} and a boat with
+a sail coming towards us from Tufa, and my heart sank within me, for I
+knew that if they saw we were pursued by Pule-o-Vaitafe, they would, out
+of respect for him, stop us from escaping. Still there was naught for us
+to do but go on, and so we leapt and sprang from sea to sea, and Manaia
+bade us be of good heart, as he turned the head of the canoe toward the
+land.
+
+     * A large native-built boat
+
+"If this _taumualua_ and the boat seek to stay us, I shall run ashore,"
+he said, "and we will take to the mountains. It is Manka's boat, for
+now I can see the flag from the peak--the flag of America." "And the
+_taumualua_ is that of Tamavili of Tufa," said Selema quietly, for she
+is a girl of great heart, "and it races with the white man's boat."
+
+I, who was shaking with fear, cannot now well remember all that
+followed, after Manaia headed our canoe for the shore, and tried to
+escape, but suddenly, it seemed to me, the white man's boat, with
+flapping sail, was upon as, and Manka was laughing loudly.
+
+"Ho, ho!" he cried, pulling his long white moustache, "so this is the
+way the wind bloweth! The old dotard Tamavili and I race together for a
+bride, and the bride is for neither of us, but for the man who saved her
+from the sea. Ha, ha! Thou art a fine fellow, Manaia, and I bear thee no
+ill will, even though the girl hath my good golden money."
+
+"Nay, Manka," cried Selema quickly, and taking something from her girdle
+she held it up to the white man; "see, here is thy gift to the lady Sa
+Luia. We meant to give it back to thee with all good will, for Sa Luia
+loves no man but this her lover Manaia, who held her up from the angry
+sea when her mother died. And so when Pule-o-Vaitafe took the money from
+her--which was thy free gift--I waited till he slept, and stole the key
+of his treasure-chest, and took the money so that it might be returned
+to thee."
+
+"Is this true?" asked the white man of Manaia. "The money is thine,"
+said Manaia, who knew not what else to say, "but the woman is mine.
+So let us depart, for Tamavili and his men--whom no one in Malifanua
+thought to see for three days yet--are drawing near, and we may escape
+by running the canoe through the surf, and taking to the mountains."
+
+The white man swore an oath. "Thou art a fine fellow, and I bear no ill
+will, but will help thee to outwit that old dodderer who tried to steal
+away three days before me. I will put my boat between he and thee and
+keep him off. Whither wouldst land?"
+
+"Not here, unless we are pressed. But we are in bad case; for see, on
+the one side comes Pule-o-Vaitafe, and on the other Tamavili. Yet if
+thou wilt be the good friend to us, we may escape both, and keep on our
+way to the open sea."
+
+"The open sea!" cried Manka quickly--"and whither to?"
+
+"To Uea."
+
+"Thou art a bold fellow," said the white man again, "and shalt have the
+girl, for thou art worthy of her. And she shall keep the money for her
+dowry. I am no man to go back on my word, even though I lose so fair
+a bride. As for Pule-o-Vaitafe, I care not a blade of grass, and for
+Tamavili even less. And see, take this rifle, and if Tamavili cometh too
+close to thee, how can I help thee defending thyself and the women?"
+
+With that he gave Manaia one of six rifles in his boat and two score and
+ten cartridges, some tobacco, matches, and a pipe; then he pressed our
+hands and wished us God-speed, and we parted, he sailing towards the
+_taumualua_, which was crowded with men, and we following. When he came
+within speaking distance of Tamavili, he again brought his boat to the
+wind and mocked at the old man.
+
+"Ho, ho! Tamavili. Whither goest in such a hurry? See, there in the
+canoe is the little bird we both sought, and there following comes her
+father. But she is neither for me nor thee. Is not her lover there, a
+fine man--nearly as handsome as I am, and big enough to make ten such
+rats as thee."
+
+Tamavili was mad with rage, and did not answer. There were with Manka
+six men--all armed with rifles which loaded at the breech like that
+which he had given Manaia, and Manka was too great a man for even
+Tamavili to hurt. But suddenly, as we in the canoe sailed in between the
+boat and the _taumualua_, the old chief found his voice, and called out
+to Manaia to lower his sail.
+
+"Give me the lady Sa Luia," he said, "and I will let thee and the girl
+Selema go," and as he spoke, the crew turned the _taumualua_ round and
+came after us, twenty men paddling on each side.
+
+"Keep back!" cried Manaia fiercely, as he changed seats with me, and
+giving me the steering paddle, he took up the rifle and loaded it.
+
+"Beware, old man!" shouted Manka, "'tis a dog that bites!"
+
+But Tamavili was too hot with anger to take heed, and shouted to his men
+to go on, and then Manaia took aim and fired, and two men went down.
+
+"Ho, ho!" and Manka's voice again mocked, "did I not say 'twas a dog
+that bit?"
+
+There was great commotion in the _taumualua_ for a moment or two, but
+_Tamavili_ shouted to his men to go on; he would have ordered some of
+them to cease paddling and try and shoot Manaia, but feared to hurt
+or perhaps kill me, and that would have meant war between Tufa and
+Mulifanua.
+
+"Alo, alo foe!"{*} he cried, standing up on the stem and brandishing
+his death-knife at Manaia. "I shall give thy head to the children of the
+village for a football ere the sun is in mid-heaven."
+
+      * "Paddle, paddle hard!"
+
+That was a foolish boast, for once more Manaia knelt and shot, and I
+turned my head and saw the blood spurt from Tamavili's naked chest as he
+fell down without a sound among the paddlers and a loud cry of anger
+and sorrow burst from his men. But in a moment a young sub-chief of Tufa
+named _Lau Aula_ (the Golden-haired) took command and shouted to the crew
+to press on, and leaping to the bow, he began firing at us with a short
+gun (revolver) and one of the bullets struck the girl Selema on the leg
+and tore a hole through the fleshy part. Now this Lau Aula was a blood
+relative of Manaia, who called out to him to cease firing, but Lau Aula
+took no heed, and began shooting at us with muskets loaded with round
+bullets, which were handed to him by some of his people.
+
+Then Manaia's face was evil to look at; his lips were drawn back, and
+his teeth showed like those of an angry dog, for the blood which flowed
+from Selema's wound was creeping around his naked feet. Yet once more he
+cried out to Lau Aula to beware ere it was too late; but the young chief
+called him a thief, and bade him bring the boat to the wind.
+
+"This for thee, then," cried Manaia, and once more he raised his rifle
+and fired, and Lan Anla spun round and fell over into the sea, for the
+bullet had struck him in the throat and his life was gone.
+
+That was the last of the fight, for when Lau Aula fell, the rest of
+Tamavili's men threw down their paddles and let us sail on without
+further pursuit.
+
+Then, whilst I steered, Manaia tied strips of tappa around Selema's leg
+so as to stay the bleeding.
+
+"We are safe," cried the girl bravely through her tears, for the pain
+was very great. "See, lady, the wind is not strong enough for the big
+double canoe to pursue us."
+
+But yet, in his rage, when my father saw that we were escaping, he
+lowered the mat sail and fired two shots at us with the cannon, and the
+great heavy balls roared over our heads and fell into the sea with a
+heavy splash not fifty fathoms away. But cannon-balls cost much money,
+and so, when a third shot was fired, and it fell astern of our boat, my
+father wasted no more, and we saw the sail again hoisted and the canoe
+go slowly down towards the _taumualua_ of Tamavili, to which the white
+man was already rendering succour, for Manka, although he had quarrelled
+with the old chief of Tufa, was yet a man of a kind heart.
+
+And so we sailed on before a fair, soft breeze, and by sunset the great
+mountain peaks of Savai'i had sunk beneath the sea rim, and we were
+steering westward by the bright stars with a great joy filling our
+hearts.
+
+For four days we sailed steadily onwards, and Selema's wound soon began
+to heal. On the evening of the fourth day we saw the land of Uea just
+showing above the sea rim, and thought to place our feet on the shore
+in the morning. But now came sorrow, for in the night it began to blow
+strongly from the north-east, and heavy rain squalls drove us past the
+land. In the morning there was but the open sea, and the waves were
+white and angry, and all that day and the next Manaia kept the boat to
+the wind, hoping that it would change and let us sail back to Uea. But
+we hoped vainly; and then, on the third day, there came such a furious
+storm that we could do naught but drive before it, and go on and on into
+the great unknown western ocean, whither so many have gone, and have
+been no more known of men. For many, many days we sailed on, and then,
+although we had much rain and so suffered no thirst, our food began to
+fail, and had not Manaia one day caught a sleeping turtle, we should
+have perished. Some time about the fourteenth day, we saw the jagged
+peaks of an island against the sky, and steered for it. It was the
+island called Rotumah--a fine, fair country, with mountains and valleys
+and running streams, and on it dwell people who are like unto us Samoans
+in appearance and manners and language. We sailed the boat into a bay on
+which stood a village of many houses, and the people made us welcome and
+gave us much food, and besought us to stay there, for their island was,
+they said, a better place than Uea. And this we should have done and
+been content, but in the night, as I slept in the house of the unmarried
+women, a girl whispered in my ear--
+
+"Get thee away with thy lover and the girl Selema. Felipa, the head
+chief of Fao, hath been told of thy beauty, and hath sent word here that
+the man Manaia must be killed to-night, and thou and Selema be sent to
+him. This is wrong for even a chief to do, and we of this place would
+aid thee to escape."
+
+So Manaia and I and Selema stole away to the boat, and the people of the
+village, who pitied us, pretended not to hear or see us. They were very
+kind, and had put baskets of cooked food and other things into the boat;
+and so we pushed off, and stood out to sea once more. They had told
+us to go round to the north end of the island, where there was a chief
+named Loli, who would protect us and give us a home.
+
+But again evil fortune befell us, for the chief of Fao, hearing of our
+escape, sent a messenger overland to Loli, claiming us as _mea tafea i
+moana_--gifts sent to him by the sea--and asking him to hold us for him.
+And so Loli, who would have welcomed us, was afraid, and begged us not
+to land and so bring about bloodshed.
+
+"Great is my sorrow, O wanderers," he cried to us, as we sat in the boat
+a little distance from the beach, "but ye must not land. Steer to the
+west, and a little to the south, where there is a great land--many, many
+islands which trend north and south."{*}
+
+     * The New Hebrides Group.
+
+"Is it far?" asked Manaia scornfully.
+
+"Four days for a ship, longer for a boat," replied Loli shamefacedly;
+"the gods go with thee, farewell."
+
+Once again we sailed towards the setting sun, steering by the stars at
+night time, and for seven days all went well. Then after that there came
+calms, and the hot sun beat upon us and ate its way into our hearts, and
+we saw no sign of land, and only now and then did a seabird come near
+us. And then came the time when all our food was gone, and we waited for
+death to come. Manaia had eaten no food for five days when it came to
+this, for he said he was feeling quite strong, and divided his share
+between us. Once as he and I slept Selema put a little piece of old
+coconut--the last that was left--into my hand, and slipped over the side
+to die, but Manaia heard her, and, although he was very weak, he roused
+and caught her as she sank.
+
+Two days before that on which the ship found us Manaia shot a small
+shark which was following the boat. It was not as long as a man's arm
+nor as thick as a woman's, but it kept us alive. Manaia gave us all the
+flesh, and kept only the head and skin for himself; after that all the
+world became dark to me, and we lay together in the boat to die.
+
+The captain of the whale-ship was very kind to us, and when he found
+that the sailor named Falaoa did not wish to part from us on account of
+Selema, whom he wished to marry, he gave his consent, and said he would
+land us all here at Nufilole, where there was a white man who would be
+kind to us.
+
+That is all, and now my husband Manaia and I, and Falaoa and his wife
+Selema are well content to live here always. For even now, after many
+months have passed, do Selema and I cry out in our slumbers, and when
+we awaken our hair lies wet upon our foreheads; but soon all these bad
+dreams will pass away from us for ever.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Memory Of The Southern Seas, by Louis Becke
+
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