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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43688 ***
+
+[Illustration: _Frontis._ THERE WAS A TERRIBLE SCENE OF NOISE AND
+CONFUSION. Page 124]
+
+
+
+
+                          Wednesday the Tenth
+
+                               A TALE OF
+                           THE SOUTH PACIFIC
+
+
+                                   BY
+                              GRANT ALLEN
+
+                               Author of
+                          Common Sense Science
+                               and others
+
+
+                                 BOSTON
+                           D LOTHROP COMPANY
+                  WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD
+
+
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1890,
+                                   BY
+                          D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+    WE SIGHT A BOAT                                                9
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+    THE BOAT'S CREW                                               27
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+    THE MYSTERY SOLVED                                            41
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+    MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY                                         56
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+    A BREAK-DOWN                                                  72
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+    ON THE ISLAND                                                 86
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+    ERRORS EXCEPTED                                              100
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+    HOT WORK                                                     113
+
+
+
+
+                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+    There was a terrible scene of noise and confusion       _Front._
+
+    Where the Frenchmen landed                                    19
+
+    Natives of the Island of Tanaki                               58
+
+    The savages fell back and listened with eagerness             70
+
+
+
+
+                          WEDNESDAY THE TENTH.
+
+                     _A Tale of the South Pacific._
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                            WE SIGHT A BOAT.
+
+
+On the eighteenth day out from Sydney, we were cruising under the lee of
+Erromanga--of course you know Erromanga, an isolated island between the
+New Hebrides and the Loyalty group--when suddenly our dusky Polynesian
+boy, Nassaline, who was at the masthead on the lookout, gave a surprised
+cry of "Boat ahoy!" and pointed with his skinny black finger to a dark
+dot away southward on the horizon, in the direction of Fiji.
+
+I strained my eyes and saw--well, a barrel or something. For myself, I
+should never have made out it was a boat at all, being somewhat slow of
+vision at great distances; but, bless your heart! these Kanaka lads have
+eyes like hawks for pouncing down upon a canoe or a sail no bigger than
+a speck afar off; so when Nassaline called out confidently, "Boat ahoy!"
+in his broken English, I took out my binocular, and focused it full on
+the spot towards which the skinny black finger pointed. Probably,
+thought I to myself, a party of natives, painted red, on the war-trail
+against their enemies in some neighboring island; or perhaps a "labor
+vessel," doing a veiled slave-trade in "indentured apprentices" for New
+Caledonia or the Queensland planters.
+
+To my great surprise, however, I found out, when I got my glasses fixed
+full upon it, it was neither of these, but an open English row-boat,
+apparently, making signs of distress, and alone in the midst of the wide
+Pacific.
+
+Now, mind you, one doesn't expect to find open English row-boats many
+miles from land, drifting about casually in those far-eastern waters.
+There's very little European shipping there of any sort, I can tell you;
+a man may sometimes sail for days together across that trackless sea
+without so much as speaking a single vessel, and the few he does come
+across are mostly engaged in what they euphoniously call "the
+labor-trade"--in plain English, kidnaping blacks or browns, who are
+induced to sign indentures for so many years' service (generally "three
+yams," that is to say, for three yam crops), and are then carried off by
+force or fraud to some other island, to be used as laborers in the
+cane-fields or cocoa-nut groves. So I rubbed my eyes when I saw an open
+boat, of European build, tossing about on the open, and sang out to the
+man at the wheel:
+
+"Hard a starboard, Tom! Put her head about for the dark spot to the
+sou'-by-southeast there!"
+
+"Starboard it is!" Tom Blake answered cheerily, setting the rudder
+about; and we headed straight for that mysterious little craft away off
+on the horizon.
+
+But there! I see I've got ahead of my story, to start with, as the way
+is always with us salt-water sailors. We seafaring men can never spin a
+yarn, turned straight off the reel all right from the beginning, like
+some of those book-making chaps can do. We have always to luff round
+again, and start anew on a fresh tack half a dozen times over, before we
+can get well under way for the port we're aiming at. So I shall have to
+go back myself to Sydney once more, to explain who we were, and how we
+happened to be cruising about on the loose that morning off Erromanga.
+
+My name, if I may venture to introduce myself formally, is Julian
+Braithwaite. I am the owner and commander of the steam-yacht
+_Albatross_, thirty-nine tons burden, as neat a little craft as any on
+the Pacific, though it's me that says it as oughtn't to say it; and I've
+spent the last five years of my life in cruising in and out among those
+beautiful archipelagos in search of health, which nature denies me in
+more northern latitudes. The oddest part of it is, though I'm what the
+doctors call consumptive in England--only fit to lie on a sofa and read
+good books--the moment I get clear away into the Tropics I'm a strong
+man again, prepared to fight any fellow of my own age and weight, and as
+fit for seamanship as the best Jack Tar in my whole equipment. The
+_Albatross_ numbers eighteen in crew, all told; and as I am not a rich
+enough or selfish enough a man to keep up a vessel all for my own
+amusement, my brother Jim and I combine business and pleasure by doing a
+mixed trade in copra or dried cocoa-nut with the natives from time to
+time, or by running across between Sydney and San Francisco with a light
+cargo of goods for the Australian market.
+
+Our habit was therefore to cruise in and out among the islands, with no
+very definite aim except that of picking up a stray trade whenever we
+could make one, and keeping as much within sight of land, for the sake
+of company, as circumstances permitted us. And that is just why, though
+bound for Fiji, we had gone so far out of our way that particular voyage
+as to be under the lee of Erromanga.
+
+As for our black Polynesian boy, Nassaline, to tell you the truth, I am
+proud of that lad, for he's a trophy of war; we got him at the point of
+the sword off a slaver. She was a fast French sloop, "recruiting" for
+New Caledonia, as they call it, on one of the New Hebrides, when the
+_Albatross_ happened to come to anchor, by good luck or good management,
+in the same harbor. From the moment we arrived I had my eye on that
+smart French sloop, for I more than half suspected the means she was
+employing to beat up recruits. Early next morning, as I lay in my bunk,
+I heard a fearful row going on in boats not far from our moorings; and
+when I rushed up on deck, half-dressed, to find out what the noise was
+about, blessed if I didn't see whole gangs of angry natives in canoes,
+naked of course as the day they were born, or only dressed, like the
+Ancient Britons, in a neat coat of paint, pursuing the French sloop's
+jolly-boat, which was being rowed at high pressure by all its crew
+toward its own vessel. "Great guns!" said I, "what's up?" So, looking
+closer, I could make out four strapping young black boys lying manacled
+in the bottom, kicking and screaming as hard as their legs and throats
+could go, while the Frenchmen rowed away for dear life, and the Kanakas
+in the canoes paddled wildly after them, taking cock-shots at them with
+very bad aim from time to time with arrows and fire-arms. Such a
+splutter and noise you never heard in all your life. Ducks fighting in a
+pond were a mere circumstance to it.
+
+"Tom Blake!" I sang out, "is the gig afloat there?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," says Tom, jumping up. "She's ready at the starn. Shall
+we off and at 'em?"
+
+"Right you are, Tom!" says I; "all hands to the gig here!"
+
+Well, in less than three minutes I'd got that boat under way, and was
+rowing ahead between the Frenchmen and their sloop, with our Remingtons
+ready, and everything in order for a good stand-up fight of it.
+
+When the Frenchmen saw we meant to intercept them, and found themselves
+cut off between the savages on one side and an English crew well-armed
+with rifles of precision on the other, they thought it was about time to
+open negotiations with the opposing party. So the skipper stopped, as
+airy as a gentleman walking down the Boulevards, and called out to me in
+French, "What do you want ahoy, there?"
+
+"Ahoy there yourself," says I, in my very best Ollandorff. "We want to
+know what you're doing with those youngsters?"
+
+"Oh! it's that, is it?" says the Frenchman, as cool as a cucumber,
+coming nearer a bit, and talking as though we'd merely stopped him with
+polite inquiries about the time of day or the price of spring chickens;
+while the savages, seeing from our manner we were friendly to their
+side, left off firing for a while for fear of hitting us. "Why, these
+are apprentices of ours--indentured apprentices. We've bought them from
+their parents by honest trade--paid for 'em with Sniders, ammunition,
+calico and tobacco; and if you want to see our papers and theirs,
+Monsieur, here they are, look you, all perfectly _en règle_," and he
+held up the bundle for us to inspect in full--with a telescope, I
+suppose--at a hundred yards' distance.
+
+"Row nearer, boys," I said, "and we'll talk a bit with this polite
+gentleman. He seems to have views of his own, I fancy, about the proper
+method of engaging servants."
+
+But when we tried to row up the Frenchman stopped and called out at the
+top of his voice, in a very different tone, all bustle and bluster,
+"Look out ahead there! If you come a yard closer we open fire. We want
+no interference from any of you Methodistical missionary fellows."
+
+"We ain't missionaries," I answered quietly, cocking my revolver in the
+friendliest possible fashion right in front of him; "we're traders and
+yachtsmen. Show 'em your Remingtons, boys, and let 'em see we mean
+business! That's right. Ready! present!--and fire when I tell you! Now
+then, Monsieur, you bought these boys, you say. So far, good. Next then,
+if you please, who did you buy them from?"
+
+The Frenchman turned pale when he saw we were well-armed and meant
+inquiry; but he tried to carry off still with a little face and bluster.
+"Why, their parents, of course," he answered, with a signal to his
+friends in the ship to cover us with their fire-arms.
+
+"From their parents? O, yes! Well, how did you know the sellers were
+their parents?" I asked, still pointing my revolver towards him. "And
+why are the boys so unwilling to go? And what are the natives making
+such a noise over this little transaction in indentured labor for? If
+it's all as you say, what's this fuss and row about? Keep your rifles
+steady, lads."
+
+"They want to back out of their bargain, I suppose, now they've drunk
+our rum and smoked our tobacco," the Frenchman said.
+
+"No true, no true," one of the natives shouted out from beyond in his
+broken English. "Man a _oui-oui_!"--that's what they call the French,
+you know, all through the South Pacific--"man a _oui-oui_, bad--no
+believe man, a _oui-oui_--him make us drunk, so try to cheat us."
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE FRENCHMEN LANDED. Page 19]
+
+"Now, you look here, Monsieur," I said severely, turning to the skipper,
+"I know what you've been doing. I've seen this little game tried on
+before. You landed here last night with your peaceable equipment for
+recruiting labor--we know what that means--a Winchester sixteen-shooter
+and half a dozen pairs of English handcuffs. You brought on shore your
+'trade'--a common clay pipe or two, some cheap red cloth, and a lot of
+bad French Government tobacco; and you treated the natives all round to
+free drinks of your square gin. When they'd reached that state of
+convenient conviviality that they didn't know who they were or what they
+were doing, you took advantage of their guileless condition. You picked
+out the likeliest young men and lads, selected any particularly drunken
+native lying about loose to represent their fathers, made 'em put their
+marks to a formal paper of indentures, and handed over twenty dollars, a
+bottle of rum, and a quid of tobacco, as a consolation for the wounded
+feelings of their distressed relations. You've been carrying them off
+all night at your devil's game; and now in the morning the natives are
+beginning to wake up sober, miss their friends, and put a summary stop
+to your little proceedings. Well, sir, I give you one minute to make up
+your mind; if you don't hand us over these four lads to set on shore
+again, we'll open fire upon you; and as we're stronger than you, with
+the natives at our back, we'll make a prize of you, and tow you into
+Fiji on a charge of slave-trading."
+
+Before the words were well out of my mouth the French skipper had given
+the word "Fire!" and the bullets came whizzing past, and riddling the
+gunwale of the gig beside us. One of them grazed my arm below the
+shoulder and drew blood. Now there's nothing to put a man's temper up
+like getting shot in the arm. I lost mine, I confess, and I shouted
+aloud, "Fire, boys, and row on at them!" Our fellows fired, and the very
+same moment the natives closed in and went at them with their canoes,
+all alive with Sniders, lances and hatchets. It was a lively time, I can
+tell you, for the next five minutes, with those lithe, long black
+fellows swarming over them like ants; and poor Tom Blake got a bullet
+from a French rifle in his thigh, that lodges there still in very
+comfortable quarters. But one of the Frenchmen fell back in the
+jolly-boat shot through the breast, and the skipper, who turned out to
+be a fellow with one sound leg and a substitute, was severely wounded.
+So we'd soon closed in upon them, the natives and ourselves, and
+overpowered their crew, which was only ten, all told, besides the
+fellows on the big vessel in the harbor.
+
+Well, we took out the four boys, when the mill was over, and transferred
+them to our gig; and then we escorted the Frenchmen, ironed in their own
+handcuffs, to the deck of their sloop, with the natives on either side
+in their canoes rowing along abreast of us like a guard of honor. The
+crew of the sloop didn't attempt to interfere with us as we brought
+their comrades handcuffed aboard; if they had, why, then, with the help
+of the savages, we should have been more than a match for them. So we
+prowled around the ship on a voyage of discovery, and found ample
+evidence in her get-up of her character as an honest and single-hearted
+recruiter of labor. A rack in the cabin held eight Snider rifles, loaded
+for use, above which hung eight revolvers, employed doubtless in
+self-defense against the lawless character of the Kanakas, as the
+skipper (with his hands in irons and his eyes in tears) most solemnly
+assured us. The sloop was prepared throughout, with loopholes and
+battening-hatches, to stand a siege, and could have made short work of
+the natives alone had they tried to attack her, for she carried a small
+howitzer, not so big as our own; but she never suspected interference
+from a European vessel. We went down into her hold, and there we found
+about forty natives, men, women and children--free agents all, the
+skipper had declared--packed as tight as herrings in a barrel, and with
+stench intolerable to the European nostril. Such a sight you never saw
+in your life. There they lay athwart ship, side by side, the unhappy
+black cattle, some handcuffed and manacled, others dead-drunk and too
+careless to complain, while the women and children were crying and
+screaming, and the men were shouting as loud as they could shout in
+their own lingo.
+
+Fortunately, we had a sailor aboard the _Albatross_ who had been a
+beach-comber (or degraded white man who lives like a native) for three
+years on the island of Ambrymon, and had a Kanaka girl for a sweetheart;
+so he could talk their palaver almost as easy as you can English, and he
+acted as interpreter for us with the poor people in the hold. We knocked
+their handcuffs off, and explained the situation to them. About a dozen
+of the wretchedest and most squalid-looking of the lot were prepared,
+even when we offered them freedom, to stand by their last night's
+bargain, and go on to New Caledonia; but the remainder were only too
+delighted to learn that they might go ashore again; and they gave us
+three ringing British cheers as soon as they understood we had really
+liberated them.
+
+As for the four boys we'd got in the gig, three of them elected at once
+to go home to their own people on the island; but the fourth was our
+present black servant, Nassaline. He, poor boy, was an orphan; and his
+nearest relations, having held a consultation the day before whether
+they should bake him and eat him, or sell him to the Frenchman, had
+decided that after all he would be worth more if paid for in tobacco and
+rum than if roasted in plantain-leaves. So, as soon as he found we were
+going to put him on shore again, the poor creature was afraid after all
+he was being returned for the oven; and flinging himself on his face in
+the gig, groveling and cringing, he took hold of our knees and besought
+us most piteously (as our sailor translated his words for us) to take
+him with us. Of course, when we entered into the spirit of the
+situation, we felt it was impossible to send the poor fellow back to be
+made "long pig" of; so, to his immense delight, we took him along, and a
+more faithful servant no man ever had than poor Nassaline proved from
+that day forth to me.
+
+I've gone out of my way so far, as I said before, to tell you this
+little episode of life in the South Pacific, partly in order to let you
+know who Nassaline was and how we came by him; but partly also to give
+you a side glimpse of the sort of gentry, both European and native, one
+may chance to knock up against in those remote regions. It'll help you
+to understand the rest of my yarn. And now, if you please, I'll tack
+back again once more into my proper course, to the spot where I broke
+off in sight of Erromanga.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+                            THE BOAT'S CREW.
+
+
+Presently, as we headed towards the black object on the horizon,
+Nassaline stretched out that skinny finger of his once more (no amount
+of feeding ever seemed to make Nassaline one ounce fatter), and cried
+out in his shrill little piping voice, "Two man on the boat! him makey
+signs for call us!"
+
+I'd give anything to have eyes as sharp as those Polynesians. I looked
+across the sea, and the loppy waves in the foreground, and could just
+make out with the naked eye that the row-boat had something that looked
+like a red handkerchief tied to her bare mast, and a white signal
+flapping in the wind below it; but not a living soul could I distinguish
+in her without my binocular. So I put up my glasses and looked again.
+Sure enough, there they were, two miserable objects, clinging as it
+seemed half-dead to the mast, and making most piteous signs with their
+hands to attract our attention. As soon as they saw that we had really
+sighted them, and were altering our course to pick them up, their joy
+and delight knew no bounds, as we judged. They flung up their arms
+ecstatically into the air, and then sank back, exhausted, as I guessed,
+on to the thwarts where they had long ceased sitting or rowing.
+
+They were wearied out, I imagined, with long buffeting against that
+angry and immeasurable sea, and must soon have succumbed to fatigue if
+we hadn't caught sight of them.
+
+We put on all steam, as in duty bound, and made towards them hastily. By
+and by, my brother Jim, who had been off watch, came up from below and
+joined me on deck to see what was going forward. At the same moment
+Nassaline cried out once more, "Him no two man! Him two boy! Two English
+boy! Him hungry like a dying!" And as he spoke, he held his own skinny
+bare arm up to his mouth dramatically, and took a good bite at it, as if
+to indicate in dumb show that the crew of the boat were now almost ready
+to eat one another.
+
+Jim looked through the glasses, and handed them over to me in turn. "By
+George, Julian," he said, "Nassaline's right. It's a couple of boys, and
+to judge by the look of them, they're not far off starving!"
+
+I seized the glasses and fixed them upon the boat. We were getting
+nearer now, and could make out the features of its occupants quite
+distinctly. A more pitiable sight never met my eyes. Her whole crew
+consisted of two white-faced lads, apparently about twelve or thirteen
+years old, dressed in loose blue cotton shirts and European trousers,
+but horribly pinched with hunger and thirst, and evidently so weak as to
+be almost incapable of clinging to the bare mast whence they were trying
+to signal us.
+
+Now, you land-loving folk can hardly realize, I dare say, what such an
+incident means at sea; but to Jim and me, who had sailed the lonely
+Pacific together for five years at a stretch, that pathetic sight was
+full both of horror and unspeakable mystery. For anybody, even grown men
+long used to the ocean, to be navigating that awful expanse of water
+alone in an empty boat is little short of ghastly. Just think what it
+means! A stormy sheet that stretches from the north pole to the south
+without one streak of continuous land to break it; a stormy sheet on
+which the winds and waves may buffet you about in almost any direction
+for five thousand miles, with only the stray chance of some remote
+oceanic isle to drift upon, or some coral reef to swallow you up with
+its gigantic breakers. But a couple of boys!--mere children
+almost!--alone, and starving, on that immense desert of almost
+untraveled water! On the Atlantic itself your chance of being picked up
+from open boats by a passing vessel is slight enough, heaven knows! but
+on the Pacific, where ships are few and routes are far apart, your only
+alternative to starvation or foundering is to find yourself cast on the
+tender mercies of the cannibal Kanaka. No wonder I looked at Jim, and
+Jim looked at me, and each of us saw unaccustomed tears standing half
+ashamed in the eyes of the other.
+
+"Stop her!" I cried. "Lower the gig, Tom Blake! Jim, we must go
+ourselves and fetch these poor fellows."
+
+At the sound of my bell the engineer pulled up the _Albatross_ short and
+sharp, with admirable precision, and we lowered our boat to go out and
+meet them. As we drew nearer and nearer with each stroke of our oars, I
+could see still more plainly to what a terrible pitch of destitution and
+distress these poor lads had been subjected during their awful journey.
+Their cheeks were sunken, and their eyes seemed to stand back far in the
+hollow sockets. Their pallid white hands hardly clung to the mast by
+convulsive efforts with hooked fingers. They had used up their last
+reserve of strength in their wild efforts to attract our attention.
+
+I thanked heaven it was Nassaline who kept watch at the mast-head when
+they first hove in sight. No European eye could ever have discovered the
+meaning of that faint black speck upon the horizon. If it hadn't been
+for the sharp vision of our keen Polynesian friend, these two helpless
+children might have drifted on in their frail craft for ever, till they
+wasted away with hunger and thirst under the broiling eye of the hot
+Pacific noontide.
+
+We pulled alongside, and lifted them into the gig. As we reached them,
+both boys fell back faint with fatigue and with the sudden joy of their
+unexpected deliverance. "Quick, quick, Jim! your flask!" I cried, for we
+had brought out a little weak brandy and water on purpose. "Pour it
+slowly down their throats--not too fast at first--just a drop at a time,
+for fear of choking them."
+
+Jim held the youngest boy's head on his lap, and opened those parched
+lips of his that looked as dry as a piece of battered old shoe-leather.
+The tongue lolled out between the open teeth like a thirsty dog's at
+midsummer, and was hard and rough as a rasp with long weary watching. We
+judged the lad at sight to be twelve years old or thereabouts. Jim put
+the flask to his lips, and let a few drops trickle slowly down his burnt
+throat. At touch of the soft liquid the boy's lips closed over the mouth
+of the flask with a wild movement of delight, and he sucked in eagerly,
+as you may see a child in arms suck at the mouthpiece of its empty
+feeding-bottle. "That's well," I said. "He's all right, at any rate. As
+long as he has strength enough to pull at the flask like that, we shall
+bring him round in the end somehow."
+
+We took away the flask as soon as we thought he'd had as much as was
+good for him at the time, and let his head fall back once more upon
+Jim's kindly shoulder. Now that the first wild flush of delight at their
+rescue was fairly over, a reaction had set in; their nerves and muscles
+gave way simultaneously, and the poor lad fell back, half-fainting,
+half-sleeping, just where Jim with his fatherly solicitude chose to lay
+him.
+
+Tom Blake and I turned to the elder lad. His was a harder and more
+desperate case. Perhaps he had tried more eagerly to save his helpless
+brother; perhaps the sense of responsibility for another's life had
+weighed heavier upon him at his age--for he looked fourteen; but at any
+rate he was well-nigh dead with exposure and exhaustion. The first few
+drops we poured down his throat he was clearly quite unable to swallow.
+They gurgled back insensibly. Tom Blake took out his handkerchief, and
+tearing off a strip, soaked it in brandy and water in the cup end of the
+flask; then he gently moistened the inside of the poor lad's mouth and
+throat with it, till at last a faint swallowing motion was set up in the
+gullet. At that, we poured down some five drops cautiously. To our
+delight and relief they were slowly gulped down, and the poor white
+mouth stood agape like a young bird's in mute appeal for more
+water--more water.
+
+We gave him as much as we dared in his existing state, and then turned
+to the boat for some clue to the mystery.
+
+She was an English-built row-boat, smart and taut, fit for facing rough
+seas, and carrying a short, stout mast amidships. On her stern we found
+her name in somewhat rudely-painted letters, _Messenger of Peace:
+Makilolo in Tanaki_. Clearly she had been designed for mission service
+among the islands, and the last words which followed her title must be
+meant to designate her port, or the mission station. But what that place
+was I hadn't a notion.
+
+"Where's Tanaki, Tom Blake?" I asked, turning round, for Tom had been
+navigating the South Seas any time this twenty years, and knew almost
+every nook and corner of the wide Pacific, from Yokohama to Valparaiso.
+
+Tom shifted his quid from one cheek to the other and answered, after a
+pause, "Dunno, sir, I'm sure. Never heerd tell of Tanaki in all my born
+days; an' yet I sorter fancied, too, I knowed the islands."
+
+"There are no signs of blood or fighting in the boat," I said, examining
+it close. "They can't have escaped from a massacre, anyhow." For I
+remembered at once to what perils the missionaries are often exposed in
+these remote islands--how good Bishop Patteson had been murdered at
+Santa Cruz, and how the natives had broken the heads of Mason and Wood
+at Erromanga not so many months back, in cold blood, out of pure lust of
+slaughter.
+
+"But they must have run away in an awful hurry," Tom Blake added,
+overhauling the locker of the boat, "for, see, she ain't found; there
+ain't no signs of food or anything to hold it nowheres, sir; and this
+ere little can must 'a' been the o'ny thing they had with 'em for
+water."
+
+He was quite right. The boat had clearly put to sea unprovisioned. It
+deepened our horror at the poor lads' plight to think of this further
+aggravation of their incredible sufferings. For days they must have
+tossed in hunger and thirst on the great deep. But we could only wait to
+have the mystery cleared up when the lads were well enough to explain to
+us what had happened. Meanwhile we could but look and wonder in silence;
+and indeed we had quite enough to do for the present in endeavoring to
+restore them to a state of consciousness.
+
+"Any marks on their clothes?" my brother Jim suggested, with practical
+good sense, looking up from his charge as we rowed back toward the
+_Albatross_, with the _Messenger of Peace_ in tow behind us. "That might
+help us to guess who they are, and where they hail from."
+
+I looked close at the belt of the lads' blue shirts. On the elder's I
+read in a woman's handwriting, "Martin Luther Macglashin, 6, '87." The
+younger boy's bore in the same hand the corresponding inscription, "John
+Knox Macglashin, 6, '86." It somehow deepened the tragedy of the
+situation to come upon those simple domestic reminiscences at such a
+moment.
+
+"Sons of a Scotch missionary, apparently," I said, as I read them out.
+"If only we could find where their father was at work, we might manage
+to get some clue to this mystery."
+
+"We can look him up," Jim answered, "when we get to Fiji."
+
+We rowed back in silence the rest of the way to the _Albatross_, lifted
+the poor boys tenderly on board, and laid them down to rest on our own
+bunks in the cabin. Serang-Palo, our Malay cook, made haste at the
+galleys to dress them a little arrowroot with condensed milk; and before
+half an hour the younger boy was sitting up in Jim's arms with his eyes
+and mouth wide open, craving eagerly for the nice warm mess we were
+obliged to dole out to his enfeebled stomach in sparing spoonfuls, and
+with a trifle of color already returning to his pale cheeks. He was too
+ill to speak yet--his brother indeed lay even now insensible on the bunk
+in the corner--but as soon as he had finished the small pittance of
+arrowroot which alone we thought it prudent to let him swallow at
+present, he mustered up just strength enough to gasp out a few words of
+solemn importance in a very hollow voice. We bent over him to listen.
+They were broken words we caught, half rambling as in delirium, but we
+heard them distinctly--
+
+"Steer for Makilolo ... Island of Tanaki ... Wednesday the tenth ...
+Natives will murder them ... My mother--my father--Calvin--and Miriam."
+
+Then it was evident he could not say another word. He sank back on the
+pillow breathless and exhausted. The color faded from his cheek once
+more as he fell into his place. I poured another spoonful of brandy down
+his parched throat. In three minutes more he was sleeping peacefully,
+with long even breath, like one who hadn't slept for nights before on
+the tossing ocean.
+
+I looked at Jim and bit my lips hard. "This is indeed a fix," I cried,
+utterly nonplussed. "Where on earth, I should like to know, is this
+island of Tanaki!"
+
+"Don't know," said Jim. "But wherever it is, we've got to get there."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                          THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
+
+
+We paused for a while, and looked at one another's faces blankly.
+
+"Suppose," Jim suggested at last, "we get out the charts and see if such
+a place as Tanaki is marked upon them anywhere."
+
+"Right you are," says I. "Overhaul your maps, and when found, make a
+note of."
+
+Well, we did overhaul them for an hour at a stretch, and searched them
+thoroughly, inch by inch, Jim taking one sheet of the Admiralty chart
+for the South Pacific, and I the other; but never a name could we find
+remotely resembling the sound or look of Tanaki. Tom Blake, too, was
+positive, as he put it himself, that "there weren't no such name, not in
+the whole thunderin' Pacific, nowheres." So after long and patient
+search we gave up the quest, and determined to wait for further
+particulars till the boys had recovered enough to tell us their strange
+story.
+
+Meanwhile, it was clear we must steer somewhere. We couldn't go beating
+wildly up and down the Pacific, on the hunt for a possibly non-existent
+Tanaki, allowing the _Albatross_ to drift at her own sweet will wherever
+she liked, pending the boys' restoration to speech and health. So the
+question arose what direction we should steer in. Jim solved that
+problem as easy as if it had come out of the first book of Euclid (he
+was always a mathematician, Jim was, while for my part, when I was a
+little chap at school, the asses' bridge at an early stage effectually
+blocked my further progress. I could never get over it, even with the
+persuasive aid of what Dr. Slasher used politely to call his _vis a
+tergo_.)
+
+"They're too weak to row far, these lads," Jim said in his didactic
+way--ought to have been a schoolmaster or a public demonstrator, Jim:
+such a head for proving things! "Therefore they must mostly have been
+drifting before the wind ever since they started. Now, wind for the last
+fortnight's been steadily nor'east"--the anti-trade was blowing.
+"Therefore, they must have come from the nor'east, I take it; and if we
+steer clean in the face of the wind, we're bound sooner or later to
+arrive at Tanaki."
+
+"Jim," said I, admiring him, like, "you're really a wonderful chap. You
+do put your finger down so pat on things! Steer to the nor'-east it is,
+of course. But I wonder how far off Tanaki lies, and what chance we've
+got of reaching there by Wednesday the tenth?" For though we didn't even
+know yet who the people were who were threatened with massacre at this
+supposed Tanaki, we couldn't let them have their throats cut in cold
+blood without at least an attempt to arrive there in time to prevent it.
+
+Of course, we knew with our one brass gun we should be more than a match
+for any Melanesian islanders we were likely to meet with, if once we
+could get there; but the trouble was, should we reach in time to
+forestall the massacre?
+
+By Wednesday the tenth we must reach Tanaki--wherever that might be.
+
+Jim took out a piece of paper and totted up a few figures carelessly on
+the back. "We've plenty of coal," he said, "and I reckon we can make
+nine knots an hour, if it comes to a push, even against this head wind.
+To-day's the sixth; that gives us four clear days still to the good. At
+nine knots, we can do a run of two hundred and thirty-six knots a day.
+Four two-hundred-and-thirty-sixes is nine hundred and forty-four, isn't
+it? Let me see; four sixes is twenty-four; put down four and carry two:
+four three's is twelve, and two's fourteen: four two's--yes, that's all
+right: nine hundred and forty-four, you see, ex-actly. Well, then, look
+here, Julian: unless Tanaki's further off than nine hundred and
+forty-four nautical miles--which isn't likely--we ought to get there by
+twelve o'clock on Wednesday at latest. Nine hundred and forty-four miles
+is an awful long stretch for two boys to come in an open boat. I don't
+expect these boys can have done as much as that or anything like it."
+
+"Wind and current were with them," I objected, "and she was drifting
+like one o'clock when we first sighted her. I shouldn't be surprised if
+she was making five or six knots an hour before half a gale all through
+that hard blow. And the poor boys look as if they might have been out a
+week or more. Still, it isn't likely they would have come nine hundred
+knots, as you say, or anything like it. If we put on all steam, we ought
+to arrive in time to save their father and mother. Anyhow we'll try it."
+And I shouted down the speaking tube, "Hi, you there, engineer!--pile on
+the coal hard and make her travel. We want all the speed we can get out
+of the _Albatross_ for the next three days."
+
+"All square, sir," says Jenkins; and he piled on, accordingly.
+
+So we steamed ahead as hard as we could go, in the direction where we
+expected to find Tanaki.
+
+Half an hour later, Nassaline, who had been down below with the Malay
+cook and one of the men, looking after the patients, came up on deck
+once more, with a broad grin on his jet-black face from ear to ear, and
+exclaimed in his very best Kanaka-English, "Boy come round again. Eat
+plenty arrowroot. Eat allee samee like as if starvee. Call very hard for
+see Massa Captain."
+
+"What do you think's the matter with them, Nassaline?" I asked, as I
+walked along by his side towards the companion-ladder.
+
+Nassaline's ideas were exclusively confined to a certain fixed and
+narrow Polynesian circle. "Tink him fader go sell him for laborer to a
+man _oui-oui_, or make oven hot for him," he answered, grinning; "so him
+run away, and come put himself aboard Massa Captain ship; so eat
+plenty--no beat, no starvee."
+
+It was his own personal history put in brief, and he fitted it at once
+as the only possible explanation to these other poor fugitives.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, with a compassionate smile at his innocence. "White
+people don't sell or eat their children, stupid! It's my belief,
+Nassaline, we'll never make a civilized Christian creature of you, in a
+tall hat, and with a glass in your eye. You ain't cut out for it,
+somehow. How many times have I explained to you, boy, that Christians
+never cook and eat their enemies?... They only love them, and blow them
+up with Gatlings or Armstrongs--a purely fraternal method of expressing
+slight differences of international opinion.... Now, come along down and
+let's see these lads. It's some of your heathen relations, I expect, the
+poor fellows are flying from."
+
+But I omitted to have remarked to him (as I might have done) that I
+hadn't seen such a painful sight before, since I saw the inhabitants of
+a French village in Lorraine--old men, young girls, and mothers with
+babies pressed against their breasts--flying, pell-mell, before the
+sudden onslaught of a hundred and fifty Christian Prussian Uhlans. These
+little peculiarities of our advanced civilization are best not mentioned
+to the heathen Polynesian.
+
+In the cabin we found both boys now fairly on the high-road to recovery,
+though still, of course, much too weak to talk; but bursting over, for
+all that, with eagerness to tell us their whole eventful history. For my
+own part, I, too, was all eagerness to hear it; but anxiety for their
+safety made me restrain my impatience. The elder boy, now leaning on his
+elbow and staring wildly before him with horror--a mere skeleton to look
+at, with his sunken cheeks and great hollow eyes--began to break forth
+upon me with his long tale in full; but I soon put a stop to that, you
+may be pretty sure, with most uncompromising promptitude. "My dear Mr.
+Martin Luther Macglashin," I said severely, giving him the full benefit
+of all his own various high-sounding names for greater impressiveness,
+"if you don't lean back this moment upon your pillow, quiet your rolling
+eye down to everyday proportions, and answer only in the shortest
+possible words nothing but the plain questions I put to you, hang me,
+sir, if I don't turn you and John Knox adrift again upon the wild waves,
+and continue on my course for Levuka in Fiji."
+
+"Why, how did you come to know our names?" he exclaimed, astonished.
+"You must be as sharp as a lynx, Captain."
+
+"That's not an answer to my question I asked you," I replied with as
+much sternness as I could put into my voice, looking at the poor
+fellow's starved white face. "But as a special favor to a deserving
+fellow-creature, I don't mind telling you. I'm as sharp as a lynx, as
+you say, and a trifle sharper: for no lynx would have looked for your
+names on the flap of your shirts--There, that'll do now; don't try to
+talk; just answer me quietly. Where do you come from, and where do you
+want us to go to?"
+
+Martin lifted up his face and answered with becoming brevity, "Tanaki."
+
+"That's better!" I said. "That's the sort of way a fellow ought to
+answer, when he's more than half-starved with a week at sea. But the
+next thing is, where's Tanaki?"
+
+"It's one of the group that used to be called the Duke of Cumberland's
+Islands," the boy answered faintly, yet overflowing with eagerness.
+"They lie just beyond the Ellice Archipelago, nearly on the line of a
+hundred and eighty, as you go towards the Union Group along the
+parallel of"....
+
+"Now, my dear boy," I said, "if you run on like that, as I said before,
+I shall have to turn you adrift again in your open boat at the mercy of
+the ocean. Do be quiet, won't you, and let me look up your island?"
+
+"We can't be quiet," Master John Knox put in eagerly, "when we know
+they're going to murder our father and mother and Calvin and Miriam, on
+Wednesday morning."
+
+"Just you hold your tongue, sir," I said, pushing him down again on his
+bunk, "and wait till you're spoken to. Now, not another word, either of
+you, till I've consulted my chart. Jim, hand down the Admiralty sheets
+again, there's a good fellow, will you?"
+
+Jim handed them down, and we commenced our scrutiny at once. We soon
+found the Duke of Cumberland's Islands, and as good luck would have it,
+found we were steering as straight as an arrow for them. The direction
+of the wind had not misled us. But no such place as Tanaki could we
+still find anywhere.
+
+"It used to be called 'The Long Reef,'" Martin said, looking up; "but
+now we call it by the native name, Tanaki."
+
+"Oh! The Long Reef," I said; "why didn't you say so at first? I know
+that well enough by sight on the chart; but I never heard it called
+Tanaki before. That accounts, of course, for the milk in the cocoa-nut.
+Jim, hand along the calipers here, and let's measure out the course.
+Two--four--six--eight," I went on, looping along line of sailing with
+the calipers. "A trifle short of eight hundred miles. Say seven hundred
+and eighty. And we have till Wednesday morning. Well, we ought to do
+it."
+
+"You'll be in time to save them, then!" the elder boy cried, jumping up
+once more like a Jack-in-the-box. "You'll be in time to save them!"
+
+"Will you be quiet, if you please?" I said, poking him down again flat,
+and holding my hand on his mouth. "O, yes! I expect we'll be in time to
+save them. If only you'll let us alone, and not make such a noise. We
+can do nine knots an hour easy, under all steam; and that ought to bring
+us up to Tanaki, as you call it, by Wednesday morning in the very small
+hours. Let's see, we've got four clear days to do it in."
+
+"Five," the boy answered. "Five. To-day's Friday."
+
+"No, no," I replied curtly. "Will you please shut up? Especially when
+you only darken counsel with many words. You're out of your reckoning.
+To-day's Saturday, I tell you."
+
+And in point of fact, indeed, it really was Saturday.
+
+"No, it's Friday," Martin went on with extraordinary persistence.
+
+"Saturday," I repeated. "Knife; scissors: knife; scissors."
+
+"But we got away from Tanaki eight days ago," the boy declared strongly
+with a very earnest face; "and it was Thursday when we left. I kept
+count of the days and nights all that awful time we were tossing about
+on the ocean alone, and I'm sure I'm right. To-day's Friday."
+
+"Jim," I said, turning to my brother, "what day of the week do you make
+it?"
+
+"Why, Saturday, of course," Jim answered with confidence.
+
+I went to the bottom of the companion-ladder and called out aloud where
+the boy could hear me, "Tom Blake, what day of the week and month is
+it?"
+
+"Saturday the sixth, sir," Tom called out.
+
+"There, my boy," I said, turning to him, "you see you're mistaken.
+You've lost count of the time in this awful journey of yours. I expect
+you were half unconscious the last day and night. But, good heavens,
+Jim, just to think of what they've done! They've been out nine days and
+nights in an open boat, almost without food or drink, and they've come
+all that incredible distance before the high wind. Except with a ripping
+good breeze behind them they could never have done it."
+
+"For my part," said Jim, looking up from his chart, "I can hardly
+understand how they ever did it at all. I declare, I call it nothing
+short of a miracle!"
+
+And so indeed it was: for it seemed as though the wind had drifted them
+straight ahead from the moment they started in the exact direction where
+the _Albatross_ was to meet them.
+
+I'm an old seafaring hand by this time, and I may be superstitious, but
+I see the finger of fate in such a coincidence as that one.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                         MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY.
+
+
+For the next two days we went steaming ahead as hard as we could go in a
+bee-line to the northeastward, in the direction of the Duke of
+Cumberland's Islands; and it was two days clear before those unfortunate
+boys, Jack and Martin--for that was what they called one another for
+short, in spite of their severely theological second names--were in a
+condition to tell us exactly what had happened, without danger to their
+shattered nerves and impaired digestions.
+
+When they did manage to speak--both at once, for choice, in their
+eagerness to get their story out--here's about what their history came
+to, as we pieced it together, bit by bit, from the things they told us
+at different times. If I were one of those writing chaps, now, that know
+how to tell a whole ten years' history, end on end, exactly as it
+happened, without missing a detail, I'd get it all out for you just as
+Martin told us; or better still, I'd give it to you in a single
+connected piece, between inverted commas, as his own words, beginning,
+"I was born," said he, "in the city of Edinburgh," and so forth, after
+the regular high-and-dry literary fashion. But how on earth those clever
+book-making fellows can ever remember a whole long speech, word for
+word, from beginning to end, I never could make out and never shall,
+neither. What memories they must have to do it, to be sure! It's my own
+belief they make it up more than half out of their own heads as they go
+along, and are perfectly happy if it only just sounds plausible. But
+anyhow, Martin Luther Macglashin didn't tell us all his story at a
+single time, or in a connected way; he gave us a bit now and a bit
+again, with additions from Jack, according as he was able. So being, as
+I say, no more than a free-and-easy master mariner myself, without skill
+in literature, I'm not going to try to repeat it all, word for word, to
+you precisely as it came, but shall just take the liberty of spinning my
+yarn my own way and letting you have in short the gist and substance of
+what we gradually got out of our two fugitives.
+
+Well, it seems that Jack and Martin's father was, just as I suspected, a
+Scotch missionary on the Island of Tanaki. He lived there with another
+family of missionaries of the same sect, in peace and quiet, as well as
+with an English merchant of the name of Williams, who traded with the
+natives for calico, knives, glass beads and tobacco. For a long time
+things had gone on pretty comfortably in the little settlement; though
+to be sure the natives did sometimes steal Mr. Macglashin's fowls or
+threaten to tie Mr. Williams to a cocoa-nut palm and take cock-shots at
+him with a Snider, out of pure lightness of heart, unless he gave them
+rum, square gin or brandy. Still, in spite of these playful little
+eccentricities of the good-humored Kanakas, who will have their joke,
+murder or no murder, all went as merrily as a wedding bell (as they say
+in novels) till suddenly one morning a French labor-vessel--I suspect
+the very one we had intercepted in the act of trying to carry off
+Nassaline--put into the harbor in search of "apprentices."
+
+She was a very bad lot, from what the boys told us; a genuine slaver of
+the worst type; and she stirred up a deal of mischief at Makilolo.
+
+[Illustration: NATIVES OF THE ISLAND OF TANAKI. Page 58]
+
+On the shore the Chief of Tanaki was drawn up to receive them with all
+his warriors, tastefully but inexpensively rigged out in a string of
+blue beads round the neck, an anklet of shells and a head-dress of a
+single large yellow feather.
+
+"Who are you?" shouts the chief at the top of his voice. "You man a
+_oui-oui_?"
+
+"Yes," the Frenchman shouts back in his pigeon-English. "Me de commander
+of dis French ship. Want to buy boys. Must sell them to us. Tanaki
+French island. Discovered by Bougainville."
+
+"No, no," says the Chief in pigeon-English again. "Tanaki no belong a
+man a _oui-oui_. Tanaki belong a Queenie England. Capitaney Cook find
+him long time back. My father little fellow then; him see Capitaney, him
+tell me often. Capitaney Cook no man a _oui-oui_; him fellow English."
+
+The other natives joined in at once with their loud cry, "Chief speak
+true. Tanaki belong a Queenie England. Tanaki no belong a man a
+_oui-oui_. If man a _oui-oui_ want to take Tanaki, man a Tanaki come out
+and fight him." And they threw themselves at once into a threatening
+attitude.
+
+"Have you got any Englishmen here?" the French skipper called out, to
+make sure of his ground.
+
+"Yes," says the missionary--our boys' father--standing out from the
+crowd. "Three English families here. Settled on the island. And we deny
+that this group belongs to the French Republic."
+
+At that the Frenchman pulled back a bit. When he saw there was likely to
+be opposition, and that his proceedings were watched by three English
+families, he drew in his horns a little. He knew if he interfered too
+openly with the missionaries' proceedings, an English gunboat might come
+along, sooner or later, and overhaul him for fomenting discord on an
+island known to be under the British protectorate. So he only answered
+in French, "Well, we're peaceable traders, Monsieur. We don't want to
+interfere with the British Government. Consider us friends. All we
+desire is to hire laborers." And he landed his boat's crew before the
+very face of Macglashin and the Tanaki warriors.
+
+At first, as often happens in these islands, the natives were very
+little disposed to trade with the strangers in boys or women, for they
+were afraid of the Frenchmen; and Macglashin and the other missionary
+did all they knew to prevent the new comers from carrying off any of the
+islanders into practical slavery. But after awhile the Frenchmen
+produced their regulation bottles of square gin (that's what they call
+Hollands in the South Pacific), and began to treat the Chief and the
+other savages to drinks all round, as much as you liked, with nothing to
+pay for it. In a very short time the Chief had got so much liquor aboard
+that his legs wouldn't answer the rudder any longer, and he began to
+reel about like a perfect madman. Most of the other full-grown men
+natives followed suit before long, and lay down on the beach half dead
+with drunkenness. Perhaps the liquor was drugged; perhaps it wasn't; but
+anyhow, in spite of all the missionaries could do, the shore before
+nightfall was in a condition of the wildest and most bestial orgies. The
+men, in what the newspapers call "a high state of vinous exhilaration,"
+were ready to sell their boys and girls, or anything else on earth for a
+little more gin; and as the missionaries were naturally helpless to
+prevent it, the Frenchman was soon driving a roaring trade in flesh and
+blood against the drunken savages.
+
+The business-like way they went to work, Jack and Martin told us, was
+horribly disgusting. The women, indeed, they tried to wheedle and
+cajole--"You like go along a New Caledonia along a me? Only three yam
+times; then ship bring you back again. Very good feed; plenty nyam-nyam.
+Pay very good. Pay money. Lots of shop. You buy what you like: you buy
+red dress, red handkerchief, beads like-a-chiefie. No fight; no beat; no
+swear at you. You good girl; I good fellow master." But if they couldn't
+induce them, by fair words and promises and little presents of cheap
+French finery, to put their mark to their sham indentures, then they
+just knocked them down with a blow on the head, dragged them by their
+hair to the boats hard by, and got their fathers or husbands to put
+their marks, and receive a few dollars and some red cloth in payment.
+
+As for the boys, they handled them like so many animals in a market.
+"Turn round, _cochon_! Show me your faces! _Mille tonnerres_, let me see
+how you can run, you dirty young blackguard!" They examined them as a
+veterinary would examine a horse. "Why, there was our little fellow,
+Nangaree," Jack said to us with deep concern--"Nangaree, that used to
+clean up things for mother at the mission-house: his father sold him for
+twenty dollars. The captain looked at his legs, and at the glands in his
+throat, to see if he'd had the chicken-pox and the measles. Then he said
+to his mate, 'This lot's cheap enough. He's a first-rate lad, and can
+speak English. He'll do for the hold. Bundle him along!' And the mate
+caught him up by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to the boats,
+kicking and screaming; and that was the last we saw of poor Nangaree!"
+
+For three days and nights, it seems, this horrible inhuman market or
+slave-fair went on upon the beach, the Frenchmen taking care to keep the
+natives well primed with spirits all the time, till they'd got their
+hold full, and were prepared to sail away again with their living cargo.
+Then at last they upped anchor, and out of the harbor. But before they
+went, the skipper, it appears, who was angry at the missionaries for
+having interfered with him, and was afraid they might report his
+proceedings to the British Government when next the mission ship came
+that way on her provisioning rounds, took aside the Chief in a
+confidential chat, and tried to inflame his mind, all mad drunk that he
+was, against the English residents. Apparently he had made so good a
+three days' work of it with his horrible trade, and found it so
+convenient to draw his supplies from this remote and almost unvisited
+island, that he thought it would be nice if before his next visit he
+could get rid altogether of these meddlesome strangers. He didn't want
+European witnesses to crop up against him in future; so he told the
+Chief, with a great show of confidence, that Macglashin and his friends
+were not English at all, but Scotch; and he pointed out that it was
+uncomfortable for the natives to be interfered with in their trading
+operations by a set of white-livered curs who objected to the selling of
+boys and girls into temporary slavery. Surely a Chief had a right to do
+as he would with his own subjects! What else he said, Heaven knows, but
+this is what happened as soon as the French, with their horrid cargo,
+had got well clear of the unhappy island.
+
+That very afternoon, the Chief, beginning to get sober again, but
+quarrelsome from headache and the other after-effects of a long debauch,
+came round to the mission-house in a towering rage, and asked the
+unsuspecting missionary, "Say, white man, are you a Scotchman?"
+
+"Yes," says Macglashin, not knowing what was coming. "I'm a Scotchman,
+Chief, certainly. I was born in Scotland."
+
+The Chief laughed loud. "Ha, ha," he said, "then Queenie England no take
+care a you. No send gunboat to shoot us all dead, if man a Tanaki come
+up and kill you."
+
+At that Macglashin grew alarmed, and answered, "O, yes! The Queen of
+England would certainly avenge us." And he tried to explain the exact
+relation in which Scotchmen stood to the British crown--that they were
+just as much British subjects as Englishmen, entitled to precisely the
+same amount of protection. But the Chief couldn't be made to understand.
+The French skipper had evidently poisoned his mind against them. "Man a
+Tanaki don't want no Scotchman interfere with Chief when him go to sell
+him boy and him woman," the savage said angrily. "Tanaki belong a
+Queenie England. Queenie England no want Scotchman interfere with people
+in Tanaki. Scotchman better keep quiet in him house. Queenie England no
+mind Scotchman."
+
+And no amount of reasoning produced any effect upon him.
+
+The missionaries went to bed that evening with many misgivings. They
+felt that for the first time, so far as the natives were concerned, the
+powerful protection of the British flag was now practically withdrawn.
+They were alone, as strangers, among those excited black fellows.
+
+At dead of night, while the two boys slept, a horrible din outside the
+mission-house awoke them. They looked out, and saw the red glare of
+torches outside. A frightful horde of Kanakas, naked save for their
+war-paint, drunk with the Frenchman's rum and armed with his Sniders,
+surrounded the frail building in a hideous mob of savagery. As Martin
+put his head out of the lattice a bullet came whizzing past. He withdrew
+it for a moment, terrified, and then looked out again. As he did so the
+other Scotch missionary appeared upon the veranda, half-dressed, and
+holding up his hand in dignified remonstrance, began in Kanaka with his
+gentle mild voice, "My friends, my dear friends, ..." Before he could
+get any further, the Chief stepped forward, and aiming a blow at his
+gray locks with a sacred native tomahawk, felled the peaceful old
+teacher senseless to the ground. Martin shuddered with horror. The old
+man lay weltering in a pool of his red gushing gore, while the savages
+danced in triumph over his prostrate body, or smeared themselves with
+great lines and circles of his warm heart-blood.
+
+"Come on!" the Chief cried in Kanaka. "Kill all! Kill every one! They're
+taboo to our gods. Don't fear their gunboats. Queenie England won't
+trouble to protect a Scotchman!"
+
+Then began a hideous orgy of wild lust and slaughter. The savages rushed
+on, drunk with blood and rum, and dragged out the wife and children of
+the other missionary, whom they brained upon the spot, before the
+terrified eyes of the trembling Macglashins. The trader Williams ran up
+just then, with his revolver in his hand, followed by two faithful black
+servants from a neighboring island; but the French skipper had been
+cunning enough there too. "Him a Welshman!" the savages cried. "Queenie
+England no care for him!" For indeed he happened to be born in Wales.
+And they shot him down as he came, before he could open fire upon them.
+Then they turned to massacre the Macglashins, the only remaining
+Europeans on the island.
+
+But just at that moment a sudden idea seemed to strike the Chief. He
+cried out, "Stop!" The savages fell back and listened with eagerness to
+what was coming. Then the Chief shouted out again in Kanaka--"I have a
+thought. The gods have sent it to me. This is my thought. We have killed
+enough for tonight. Let us catch them alive and bind them. Next moon is
+the great feast of my father Taranaka. I have an idea--a divine idea.
+Let us keep them till that day, and then, in honor of the gods, let us
+roast them and eat them."
+
+[Illustration: THE SAVAGES FELL BACK. Page 70]
+
+The whole assembly answered with a wild shout of delighted
+assent--"Taranaka! Taranaka! Our great dead Chief! In honor of Taranaka,
+let us roast them and eat them."
+
+So they rushed wildly on upon the defenseless white family, bound them
+in rude cords of native make, and carried them off in triumph to
+Taranaka's temple tomb in the palm-grove.
+
+And that was as much as we could allow the boys to tell us at a time, of
+their strange adventures. We were afraid of overtaxing their strength at
+first, and tried to confine their attention as much as possible to
+tinned meats and sea-biscuit soaked in condensed milk; though I'm bound
+to admit that as soon as they began to recover appetite a bit, they
+addressed themselves steadily and seriously to their food, with true
+British pluck and perseverance. In spite of the terrors from which they
+had just escaped, they did the fullest justice to Serang-Palo's cookery.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                             A BREAK-DOWN.
+
+
+Time went on, and the boys began to grow visibly fatter. It was Tuesday
+evening, and we hoped, putting on all steam as we were doing, to reach
+Tanaki by the small hours of Wednesday morning, in good season to
+relieve the four unhappy souls still, as we believed, detained there in
+captivity. We were strained on the very rack of excitement, indeed, with
+our efforts to arrive before the savages could take any further step;
+and the boys' anxiety for their parents' and their sister's safety had
+naturally communicated itself to us, as we listened to their story. Why,
+it was that very evening that Martin had told us the rest of his strange
+tale--how his father and mother, with his younger brother Calvin and his
+sister Miriam, had been confined by the savages in the grass-hut temple,
+while he and Jack were put to lie in an open out-house hard by, guarded
+only by a single half-intoxicated Kanaka. Well, in the middle of the
+night, those two brave boys had silently gnawed their ropes asunder, and
+creeping past their guard had stolen away to the beach in the desperate
+effort to escape in search of assistance. There, they luckily found the
+mission boat hauled down on the shore; and waiting only to take a can of
+water from the spring close by, and a bunch of half-ripe bananas from a
+garden on the harbor, they had put forth alone on their wild and
+adventurous voyage across the lone Pacific. I can tell you, it brought
+the tears to our eyes more than once, rough sailors as we were, to hear
+the strange story of their hopeless sail, and it made our blood boil to
+learn how these ungrateful savages had repaid the earnest and devoted
+life-labor of the unhappy missionaries.
+
+"No wonder him hungry," that young monkey Nassaline said, with profound
+condolence, "if him don't hab nuffin to eat for ten day long but unripe
+banana." Anything that concerned the human stomach always touched a most
+tender and responsive chord in Nassaline's sympathies.
+
+At eight bells when my watch was up, I went off for a quiet snooze to my
+cabin. I knew I should be wanted for hot work about three in the
+morning, for I didn't expect to effect the rescue without a hard fight
+for it; so I thought it best to get what sleep I could before arriving
+at the islands. So I lay in my berth, with my eyes shut, and a thin
+sheet spread over me (for it was broiling hot tropical weather), and I
+was just beginning to doze off in comfort, when suddenly I felt
+something move under me like a young earthquake. Next minute I was
+jolted clean out of my bed, with such a jerk that I thought at first we
+were all going to sleep on the bed of the ocean.
+
+"Halloo," I cried out to Jim up atop, rushing out of my cabin. "What's
+up? Anything wrong? What's happened?"
+
+"Grazed a reef, I guess," Jim shouted back, calmly. "No land in sight,
+but shoal water and breakers ahead. We seem to be in danger."
+
+Cool chap, Jim, under no matter what circumstances. But this looked
+serious. In a second I was up, and peering out over the bows into the
+dark black water. The _Albatross_ had slowed, and was reversing engines.
+All round us we could see great heaving breakers.
+
+"No land hereabouts," Jim sung out, consulting the chart once more. "We
+ought to be at least five miles to suth'ard of the Great Caycos Band
+Reef."
+
+As he spoke, I saw Martin's white face appearing suddenly at the top of
+the companion-ladder. He flung up his hands in an agony of despair. "Oh,
+how terrible!" the poor lad blurted out in his misery. "I ought to have
+remembered! I ought to have told you! Father says the charts hereabouts
+are all many miles wrong in their bearings. The Caycos Reef lies six or
+seven knots south by west of the point it's marked at!"
+
+In a ferment of anxiety I turned up our other Sydney charts at once to
+test his statement. Sure enough there was a discrepancy, a considerable
+discrepancy, both in latitude and longitude, between the two maps. At
+the margin of one I read this vague and uncomfortable note--"These
+islands are reported by certain navigators to lie further south and west
+than here laid down, and have never been accurately surveyed by good
+authorities. Careful navigation by day alone is recommended to master
+mariners."
+
+Jim looked at me, and I looked at Jim. What on earth could we do in such
+a fix as this? To go on in the dark, with unknown reefs before us, was
+to imperil the _Albatross_ and all on board; to cast anchor where we
+stood and hold back till daylight was to risk not arriving in time to
+rescue the unfortunate missionary with his wife and family. I glanced at
+the boy's white face as he stood by the companion-ladder, and made up my
+mind at once. Come what might, I must push forward and save them.
+
+"Slow engines," I called down the pipe, "and proceed half-speed till
+further orders. Jim, go for'ard, and keep a sharp eye on the breakers.
+As soon as we're clear, we'll steam ahead full pelt again, and risk
+going ashore sooner than leave these poor folks on the island to be
+cruelly massacred."
+
+"Thank you," the boy said, with an ashy face, and lay down upon the
+deck, unmanned and trembling. His lips were as white, I give you my
+word, as this sheet of paper I'm this moment writing upon.
+
+For a hundred yards or so we slowed, and went ahead without coming to
+any further stop; then suddenly, a sharp thud--a dull sound of
+grating--a thrill through the ship; and Jim, looking up from in front,
+with a cool face as usual, called out at the top of his voice, but with
+considerable annoyance, "By Jove, we're aground again!"
+
+And so we were, this time with a vengeance.
+
+"Back her," I called out, "back her hard, Jenkins!" and they backed her
+as hard as the engines could spurt; but nothing came of it. We were
+jammed on the reef about as tight as a ship could stick, and no power on
+earth could ever have got us off till the tide rose again.
+
+Well, we tried our very hardest, reversing engines first, and then
+putting them forward again to see if we could run through it by main
+force; but it was all in vain. Aground we were, and aground we must
+remain till there was depth of water enough on the reef to float us.
+
+Fortunately the tide was rising fast, and three hours more would see us
+out of our difficulties. Three hours was a very serious delay; but I
+calculated if we got off the reef by two in the morning, we should still
+have time to reach Tanaki pretty comfortably before seven. We must enter
+the harbor by daylight, no doubt, which would perhaps be dangerous;
+because when the savages saw us arrive, they might make haste to cut the
+white people's throats before we could get up to rescue them. But I
+thought it more likely they would try to save them, to prevent our
+opening fire upon them by way of punishment; so with what comfort we
+could, we stuck on upon the reef, and waited for the inevitable tide to
+come and float us.
+
+Waiting for the tide is always slow business.
+
+At about half-past one, however, the water began to deepen under the
+ship, and we could feel her rise and fall--bump, bump, bump--with each
+onslaught of the breakers. Now bumping on a reef isn't exactly wholesome
+for a ship's bottom, so I gave the word to Jenkins for the engines to go
+to work again; and presently, after two or three unsuccessful attempts,
+we got her safe off, by energetic reversing, and found to our great
+delight that the _Albatross_, like a tight little craft that she was,
+had sprung no leak, and was making no water. Her sound old timbers had
+just grazed the surface of that flat-topped reef without suffering any
+serious internal injury.
+
+As soon as we were free, and had examined our hold, I shouted down once
+more, "Now forward, boys, as hard as you can go, and mind, Jenkins, you
+make her travel!"
+
+To my immense surprise, instead of obeying my orders, the _Albatross_
+suddenly stood stock-still in the trough of a wave, drifting helplessly
+about like a log on the ocean.
+
+"Now then," I shouted down again, half angry and half alarmed. "What are
+you doing there, Jenkins? Didn't you hear what I said? Stir your stumps,
+my friend! Double time, and forward!"
+
+Imagine my horror when the engineer shouted back in a voice of blank
+dismay, "I can't, sir. She won't work. Don't answer to the valve. We've
+injured something in backing her off the reef there."
+
+This was an awkward job. And at such a crisis, too! In a minute I was
+down in the engine-room myself, inspecting all the valves and bearings
+with lamp in hand, and with the closest scrutiny. Before long we had
+ascertained the extent of the injury. A piece of the engine was broken
+that would certainly take us six or eight hours to repair. And it was
+already two o'clock on the Wednesday morning!
+
+But that wasn't all, either. Another serious difficulty beset us in our
+work. We were beating about in the angry sea off the Caycos Reef, with
+the breakers dashing in, and the surf running high. If we tried to mend
+the broken engine where we stood, we should infallibly be dashed to
+pieces on the dangerous shallows. You can't go to work like that on a
+lee shore, with no engine to fall back upon, and the wind blowing half a
+gale. The only thing possible for us was to hoist sail and make for the
+open sea to southward under all canvas. That was taking us further away
+from Tanaki, of course; but it was our one chance of getting our engine
+repaired in peace and quiet.
+
+So we hoisted sail and stood out to sea once more, leaving the dim long
+line of surf gradually behind us on the lee, and beating by constant
+tacks against the wind, which had now veered to the southeast, and was
+blowing us straight on to the Caycos shallows.
+
+By four o'clock we'd got so far out that we thought we might lie to a
+bit and take a few hands off navigating duty to assist the engineer in
+repairing his engine.
+
+But it proved a much more difficult and lengthy task to retrieve the
+mischief than we had at first sight at all anticipated. The minutes went
+by with appalling rapidity. Five o'clock came, and the smith was only
+just getting his iron well hammered into shape. Six o'clock, and the
+engineer was still fitting the place it came from. Seven
+o'clock--something wrong, surely, with the ship's time! Before this hour
+I had hoped to be anchored off the harbor of Tanaki.
+
+Seven o'clock on Wednesday morning; and by twelve at noon, so the boys
+assured us, the ovens would be made hot at Taranaka's tomb for those
+unfortunate prisoners on the remote island!
+
+Oh, how frantically we worked for the next two hours! and how
+remorselessly everything seemed to turn against us! How is it that
+whenever one's in the greatest hurry all nature seems to conspire to
+defeat one's purpose? I won't attempt to explain to you all the petty
+mishaps and unfortunate failures that attended our efforts. It seemed as
+if iron, wood, and coal--all inanimate matter itself--was banded
+together to make our further approach to Tanaki impossible. By nine
+o'clock I knew the worst myself. The breakdown to the engine was far
+more serious than we had at first imagined. I felt sure that before noon
+at earliest, with all our skill and toil, we couldn't possibly repair
+it.
+
+But I shrank from telling those two poor trembling lads that there was
+no hope now left of saving their parents.
+
+Gradually, however, as the day wore on, they discovered it
+themselves--they saw that the golden opportunity had been lost for us.
+As each hour passed by they told us with ever redoubled horror what they
+knew must at that moment be passing on the island. Now the savages would
+be bringing their father out before the prison hut, and sacrificing him
+with their tomahawks by the hideous blood-stained altar of their great
+dead chieftain. Now their poor mother would be crouching on the ground,
+trying in vain to protect their helpless little brother. Now Miriam
+herself, little golden-haired, three-year-old, innocent Miriam--but at
+that last horror they broke down in tears, and could say no more. They
+could only sob and hide their faces in their hands with speechless agony
+at that unspeakable picture.
+
+By noon we knew the worst must be over. They were at rest now, poor
+souls, from their month-long misery. The afternoon dragged on and we
+still worked hard on the mere chance of some respite which might enable
+us to rescue them. But we felt sure the end had come for all that. We
+worked away by the mere force of pure aimless energy. It distracted us
+from thinking of the awful events which we nevertheless in our hearts
+felt certain must have happened.
+
+It was eight at night before we got the _Albatross_ fairly under way
+again; and even then she lumbered slowly, slowly on, the engine being
+only somehow repaired, in the most clumsy fashion, till we could reach
+harbor once more, and quietly overhaul her.
+
+So we steamed ahead, feebly and cautiously, all night long, keeping a
+sharp lookout for land across our bows, and with Martin on deck almost
+all the time, to aid us by his close personal knowledge of the island
+approaches.
+
+Wednesday the tenth was over now. The terrible day had come and gone. We
+didn't doubt that the massacre was completed long before the clock
+struck one on Thursday morning.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                             ON THE ISLAND.
+
+
+At Tanaki meanwhile, as we afterwards learned by inquiry among the
+islanders, things had been going on with the unhappy missionary very
+much as our worst fears had led us to expect. Though I wasn't there at
+the time to see for myself, I got to know what happened a little later
+almost as well as if I'd been on the spot; so I shall take the liberty
+once more--not being one of these book-making chaps--of telling my story
+my own way, and explaining how matters went in rough sailor fashion,
+without trying to let you know in detail how we found it all out till I
+come to explain the upshot of our present adventures.
+
+Well, on the night when Martin and Jack stole away from the hut and got
+clear off on their venturesome journey in the mission boat, their father
+and mother, with little Calvin, who was eight years old, and Miriam, who
+was a pretty wee lassie of three, were heavily guarded by half a dozen
+desperate and drunken savages in the temple-tomb of the deceased
+Taranaka. It was a thatched native grass-house, with a bare mud floor,
+and a rough altar-slab raised high on the threshold, which covered the
+remains of the blood-thirsty old chieftain--the man who in his early
+youth had seen "Capitaney Cook" when he discovered the islands. The
+Melanesian natives, I ought to tell you, regard their dead ancestors as
+a sort of gods or guardian spirits, and frequently offer up food and
+drink at their graves as presents to appease them. Every morning gifts
+of taro, bread-fruit, and plantain were laid on the altar by Taranaka's
+tomb; and once every ten days a little square gin, mixed with
+cocoa-milk, was poured out upon the rude slab of unsculptured stone,
+that the dead chief's ghost might come to drink of it and be satisfied.
+Wednesday the tenth was the anniversary of Taranaka's death (he had been
+killed in a fight with some neighboring islanders, who fell out with him
+over the wreck of an American whaling vessel), and it was on that
+festival day that the chief proposed offering up the blood of our
+fellow-countrymen as an expiation to the shades of his departed
+relative.
+
+Macglashin and his wife never even knew that the boys had escaped. If
+they had, those long days of suspense might have been even worse for
+them. They might have been looking forward with mad hope to some miracle
+of rescue such as that which the _Albatross_ had so boldly planned, and
+which had been so cruelly interfered with by the breakdown of our
+machinery. As it was, the savages carefully kept from them all knowledge
+of their boys' escape. They never even breathed a hint of that desperate
+voyage. Every day, on the contrary, when they brought the unhappy
+missionary and his wife their daily rations of yam and banana, they
+taunted them with threats of what tortures the Chief had still in store
+for Jack and Martin. They were fatting them up, they said, for Taranaka
+to feed upon. On Taranaka's day they would be offered up as victims on
+the cannibal altar.
+
+But the most terrible part of all the poor father and mother's
+sufferings was the fact that they couldn't keep the knowledge of that
+awful fate in store for them even from Calvin and pretty little Miriam.
+Macglashin's diary, which I read later on, was just heartrending about
+the children. Those helpless mites cowered all day long on the bare mud
+floor of that hideous temple, awaiting the horrible doom that the
+savages held out before them with the painful resignation of innocent
+childhood. They were too frightened to cry over it; too frightened to
+talk of it; they only crouched pale and terrified by their mother's
+side, and dragged out the long day in horrible apprehensions. They knew
+they must die, and they sat there watching for that inevitable sentence
+to be carried out with the stoical fortitude of utter childish
+helplessness. Well, there--I'm an old hand on the sea, you know, and I
+don't mind the dangers of the wind and waves for grown men and boys that
+can look after themselves, any more than most of you land-folks mind
+dodging about in the Strand at Charing Cross on a crowded afternoon in
+the London season; but I can't bear to talk or even to think of what
+those poor children suffered all those terrible days in the heathen
+tomb-house. There are things that make a man's blood run cold to speak
+about. That makes mine run cold: I can't dwell on it any longer; it's
+too ghastly to realize.
+
+So there--the days went by, one after another; and Monday the eighth
+came, and Tuesday the ninth, and still no chance of escape or rescue. Up
+to the last moment, Macglashin hoped (as he says in the diary) that some
+miracle might occur to set them free, some interposition of Providence
+on their behalf to prevent the last misfortune from overtaking his poor
+pallid little Miriam. Perhaps the mission ship, that went her rounds
+twice a year, might happen to put in, out of due season, with some
+special message or under stress of weather; or perhaps some whaling
+vessel or some English gunboat might arrive in the nick of time in the
+little harbor of Tanaki. But when Tuesday evening came, and no help had
+arrived, the unhappy man's heart sank within him. He gave up that last
+wild hope of a rescue at the eleventh hour, and addressed himself to die
+with what courage he could muster.
+
+Ah yes, to die one's self is all easy enough; nobody worth his salt
+minds that; but to see one's wife and children murdered before one's
+eyes--there, I'm a rough sort of sailor-body, as I said before, but you
+must excuse my breaking off. I haven't got the strength to hold my pen
+and write about it. Why, I've a boy of my own at school at Sydney, and
+my Mary's in England, bless her little heart! at a lady's college they
+call it nowadays; and I know what it means; I know what it means,
+gentlemen. I'd no more expose those two dear children in the places I've
+been among the islands myself, than--well, than I'd send them to sea
+alone in a cock-boat. And my heart just bleeds for that poor father at
+Tanaki, when I read his diary over again, though I haven't got the skill
+to put it all down in words at full length as one of those fellows would
+do that write for the newspapers.
+
+However, on Tuesday night, neither Macglashin himself nor Mrs.
+Macglashin could get a wink of sleep, as you may easily imagine. They
+sat up in the temple, with their backs against the wall, and relays of
+black fellows, armed with Sniders, and smeared with red paint, watching
+them closely all the while, to see they didn't escape or try to do away
+with themselves. But Calvin fell asleep out of pure fatigue on his
+mother's lap, and Miriam, poor little soul, lay against her father's
+shoulder, dozing as peacefully as ever she dozed in her own small cot at
+the mission-house, where she was born. Once the thought came into her
+father's mind, oughtn't he to twist his handkerchief round her soft
+little throat, as she lay there all unconscious in his circling arms, to
+save her from the tender mercies of those cruel black savages? How could
+he tell what torments they might inflict upon her? Wasn't it better she
+should be spared all that horror of fear? Wasn't it better she should
+just sleep away her dear little life without ever knowing it, till she
+woke next morning in a happier and a brighter country? But in another
+minute his heart recoiled from the terrible thought. While there was
+still one chance of safety he must let things take their course. Perhaps
+even those black monsters might have pity at the last on that one ewe
+lamb. Perhaps they might spare his Miriam's life, and make her over to
+the mission-ship when it next arrived on its rounds at the island.
+
+All that night long the savages, for their part, were holding a
+_sing-sing_, as they call it, close by, and the hideous noise of their
+heathenish revels could be distinctly heard by the watchers in the
+temple. They danced to the music of their hollow drums, while the shells
+upon their ankles resounded in unison. At times the echo of horrible
+laughter fell harsh upon the ear. The natives, covered with red feathers
+and smeared with blood, were keeping high festival, as is their horrid
+custom. And as the long hours wore away, the din of their revelry became
+more wild in their orgies each moment.
+
+Morning dawned at last--the morning of Wednesday the tenth, when that
+awful deed of bloodshed was to be done before the open eye of heaven;
+and with the first streak of light the poor children awoke and gazed
+around them blankly at their temple prison. The black watchers brought
+them yam and mammee-apples once more, but they couldn't eat; they sat
+bewildered and mute, with their hands clasped in their parents' palms,
+waiting for the end, and too dazed and terrified almost to know what was
+passing.
+
+About six o'clock the Chief came down to the temple, with bloodshot eyes
+and tottering feet, attended by half a dozen naked black followers. They
+had all been drinking the greater part of the night at the _sing-sing_,
+for the Frenchmen had left plenty of square gin behind; and they
+rollicked in the cruel good-humor of the born savage.
+
+"How do, Macglashin?" the Chief inquired with a hateful leer. "How do,
+white woman? Taranaka day come at last. How you like him this morning?
+What for you no tell man a Tanaki sooner you don't know Englishman? Ha!
+ha! dat true; so him see. Queenie England no care for Scotchman."
+
+"If you dare to touch a hair of our heads," Macglashin cried in his
+despair, rising up and facing the savage angrily, "sooner or later, I
+tell you, the Queen of England will hear of it, and she'll send a
+gunboat to punish you for our death, and her sailors'll shoot you all
+down for your part in this murder."
+
+The Chief laughed--a wild, horrible, barbaric laugh. "Ha! ha!" he
+answered. "Dat all very fine for try frighten me. But man a _oui-oui_
+tell me you no true Englishman. You speakee English, but you Scotchman
+born. All samee American. Queenie England no care for American, no care
+for Scotch; no send her gunboat for look after Scotchman. Man a Tanaki
+go for eat you to-day, for do honor to ghost a Taranaka."
+
+Macglashin saw that words would produce no effect upon the tipsy and
+excited wretch; he must make up his mind for the worst. There was no
+help for it.
+
+"At least," he cried, "Chief, you'll let us say good-by to our boys
+before we die? You'll bring them in for their mother and me to take our
+last farewell of them?"
+
+The Chief shook his head and made a hideous grimace. "No say good-by to
+boys," he said, with horrible glee. "Man a Tanaki kill pig all night;
+kill Scotchman in morning. Kill baby first; then boy; then mother. Last
+of all, kill you yourself, Macglashin. Taranaka very much love white
+man's blood. Great day to-day for feast for Taranaka." And he went off
+again, grinning in hideous buffoonery, while Macglashin's soul seethed
+in speechless indignation.
+
+For half an hour more they were left undisturbed. Then the Chief
+appeared at the door once more, and beckoning with his long black
+forefinger, called to the missionary--
+
+"Come out, Macglashin!"
+
+The unhappy man strode out with little Miriam half-fainting in his arms.
+
+"Come out, white woman!" the savage cried once more.
+
+The pale mother, almost unable to totter with terror, made her way to
+the door, with Calvin's fingers intertwined in her own.
+
+"Now, white people, we going to shoot you," the savage continued,
+unabashed. "You make too much trouble for man a Tanaki. Interfere too
+much with man who sell him boy or him woman. Me don't going to kill you
+with axe, like Taranaka kill first missionary that come a Tanaki. Man a
+_oui-oui_ sell me plenty Snider. Man a Tanaki want to try him
+shooting-irons. Set you up to run, and then go fire at you."
+
+At the word he nodded, and four stalwart savages caught Macglashin in
+their arms and held him to a line drawn lightly in the dust by the
+Chief's stick. At the same moment four others caught his unhappy wife,
+and dragged her, half senseless, to the self-same line. The two children
+were ranged by their sides, pale and white with terror. Then the Chief
+walked forward, and drew another line some forty yards in front of them
+with his stick again. "When Chief call 'go,'" he called out, "man a
+Tanaki let go missionary, and boy, and white woman. Missionary run till
+him reach dis line. Man a Tanaki no shoot till missionary pass dis line.
+Den man a Tanaki fire; missionary run; man a Tanaki run after missionary
+to kill him. Whoever shoot missionary or white woman first, give him
+body up in temple to Taranaka."
+
+As he spoke, the savages ranged themselves behind, Sniders in hand. The
+Chief placed himself in order at their head on the right. Then he called
+out in Kanaka, "When I give the word--'one, two, three'--loose them!
+When I give the word Fire! off with your rifles at them."
+
+There was a deadly pause. All was still as death. Then the Chief cried
+aloud, "One--two--three--loose them!" and the savages loosed the poor
+terrified Europeans.
+
+Even in that supreme moment of agony and doubt, however, one thought
+kept rising ever in the father's and mother's heart. What had become of
+Jack and Martin?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                            ERRORS EXCEPTED.
+
+
+It was Thursday the eleventh, in the small hours of the morning. The
+_Albatross_ was lumbering along as best she might with her broken
+engine, and we were nearing the line of 180°. We weren't making much
+way, however, for the speed was low; and we hadn't so much reason for
+hurrying now, for we felt almost hopeless of being in time to prevent
+the threatened massacre. Our people, we feared, had long since fallen
+victims to the superstition and bloodthirstiness of the ungrateful
+savages.
+
+I was asleep in my berth after the fatigues of the day, and was dreaming
+of my dear little girl in England; when suddenly I felt a clammy cold
+hand laid upon my own outside the coverlet, and waking with a start, I
+saw Martin Luther standing pale and white in his blue shirt and trousers
+before me. I knew at once by his face something fresh had turned up.
+
+"Goodness gracious, boy," I exclaimed, "what on earth's the matter now?"
+
+"Captain Braithwaite," he answered with very solemn seriousness, "I've
+been counting the days over and over again, and I'm quite sure there's a
+mistake somewhere. We've got a day wrong in our reckoning, I'm certain.
+I've counted up each day and night a hundred times over since we left
+Tanaki in the boat--Jack and I--and I feel confident you're twenty-four
+hours out in your reckoning. Yesterday wasn't Wednesday the tenth at
+all. It was Tuesday the ninth, and we may yet reach Tanaki in time to
+save them."
+
+"No, no, my boy," I answered, "you're wrong; you're wrong. Your natural
+anxiety about your father's fate has upset your calculations. To-day's
+the eleventh; yesterday was the tenth. Till we get to the meridian of
+180°"--and then, with a start, I broke off suddenly.
+
+"What's the matter?" Martin cried, for he saw at once I was faltering
+and hesitating. "Ah, you see I was right now. You see this morning's the
+tenth, don't you?"
+
+In a moment the truth flashed across me with a burst. I saw it all; the
+only wonder was how on earth I had failed so long to perceive it. I
+seized the poor lad's hand in a fervor of delight, relief and
+exultation.
+
+"Martin," I cried, overjoyed, "we are both of us right in our own way of
+reckoning. This morning's the eleventh on board the _Albatross_ here,
+but it's the tenth, I don't doubt, in your island at Tanaki!"
+
+"What do you mean?" he cried, astonished, and gazing at me as if he
+thought me rather more than half-mad. "How on earth can it be Thursday
+here, while it's Wednesday at Tanaki?"
+
+"Hold on a bit, youngster," said I, jumping out of my cabin, "till I've
+consulted the chart and made quite sure about it. Let me see. Here we
+are. Duke of Cumberland's Islands, 179° west. Hooray! Hooray!" I waved
+the chart round my head in triumph. "Jim, Jim!" I shouted out, rushing
+up the companion-ladder in my night-shirt as I stood; "here's a hope
+indeed! Here's splendid news. Put on all steam at once and we may save
+them yet. Tanaki's the other side of 180!"
+
+Jim looked at me in astonishment.
+
+"Why, what on earth do you mean, Julian?" he asked. "What on earth has
+that to do with our chance of saving them?"
+
+"Jim," I cried once more, hardly knowing how to contain myself with
+excitement and reaction; "was there ever such a precious pair of fools
+in the world before as you and me, my good fellow? It's Wednesday
+morning in Tanaki, man! It's Wednesday in Tanaki! Tanaki's the other
+side of 180!"
+
+As I said the words, Jim jumped at me like a wild creature and grasped
+my hand hard. Then he caught Martin in his arms and hugged him as tight
+as if he'd been his own father. After that he threw his cap up in the
+air and shouted aloud with delight. And when he'd quite finished all
+those remarkable performances, he looked hard into my face and burst out
+laughing.
+
+"Well, upon my soul, Julian," he said, "for a couple of seasoned old
+Pacific travelers, I do agree with you that a pair of bigger fools and
+stupider dolts than you and I never sailed the ocean!"
+
+"If it had been our first voyage across now," I said to Jim, feeling
+thoroughly ashamed of myself for my silly mistake, "there might have
+been some excuse for us!"
+
+"Or if the boy hadn't told us there was a discrepancy in the accounts
+the very first day he ever came aboard," he added solemnly.
+
+"But as it is," I went on, "such a scholar's mate, such a beginner's
+blunder as this is for two seafaring men--why, it's absolutely
+inexcusable!"
+
+"Absolutely inexcusable!" Jim repeated, penitently.
+
+"But if we clap on all steam we may get there yet on Wednesday morning,"
+I continued, consulting my watch.
+
+"By three or four o'clock on Wednesday morning," Jim echoed, examining
+the chart once more, and carefully noting the ship's position. "Why,
+it's Wednesday now, Julian. We've crossed 180°."
+
+"But what day was yesterday?" Martin asked, all trembling.
+
+"Why, yesterday," I answered, "was Wednesday the tenth, my boy; but
+to-day is Wednesday the tenth also. It comes twice over at this
+longitude. We've gained a day; that's the long and the short of it. We
+ought to have known it, my brother and I, who are such old hands at
+cruising in and out of the islands; but our anxiety and distress made us
+clean forget it."
+
+"How does that come about?" Martin asked bewildered, his lips white as
+death.
+
+"Just like this," said I. "Sailing one way, you see, from England, you
+sail with the sun; and sailing the other way, you sail against it. In
+one direction you keep gaining time, and in the other you lose it."
+
+"The meridian of 180° is the particular place where the two modes of
+reckoning reach their climax," I hastened to add. "So, when you get to
+180°, sailing west, you lose a day, and Saturday's followed right off by
+Monday. But sailing east, you gain a day, and have two Sundays running,
+or whatever else the day may be when you happen to get there. Now, we're
+going in the right direction for gaining a day; and so, though yesterday
+was Wednesday the tenth the other side of 180°, to-day's Wednesday the
+tenth, don't you see, this side of it? And as Tanaki's this side, your
+people must always have reckoned by the American day, so to speak, while
+we've reckoned all along by the Australian one. It's this morning those
+savages threatened to kill your father and mother, and if we make a good
+run, we shall still perhaps be in time to save them."
+
+As I spoke, the boy's knees trembled under him with excitement. He
+staggered so that he caught at a rope for support. He was too much in
+earnest to cry, but the tears stood still in his eyes without falling.
+
+"Oh! I hope to Heaven we'll be in time," he answered. "We may save them!
+We may save them!"
+
+I went below and turned in once more for a little sleep, for I knew I
+should be wanted later in the morning; and having fortunately the true
+sailor's habit in that matter of dozing off whenever occasion occurred,
+I was soon snoring away again most comfortably on my pillow. At
+half-past three, Tom Blake came down once more to wake me.
+
+"Land in sight, sir," he said, "on our starboard bow, and this young
+fellow Martin says he makes it out to be the north point of Tanaki."
+
+In a minute I was on deck again, and peering at the dim land through the
+gray mist of morning--the same gray mist through which, as we afterwards
+learned, the poor creatures in the heathen temple saw the dawn break of
+the day that was to end their earthly troubles. It was Tanaki, no doubt,
+for Martin was quite sure he could recognize the headlands and the
+barrier reef. Our only question now was how next to proceed. We held a
+brief little council of war on deck, with Martin as our chief adviser on
+the local situation.
+
+From what he told us, I came rapidly to the conclusion that it would be
+useless to attempt an open entrance into the little harbor of Makilolo,
+where the Chief had his hut, and where the mission-people, as we
+believed, were still confined in the temple. To do so would only be to
+arouse the anger of the savages beforehand; and unless we could get them
+well between a cross fire, and so effectually prevent any further
+outrage, we feared they might massacre the unhappy people in their hands
+the moment we hove in sight to enter the harbor. But here our friend
+Martin's local knowledge of the archipelago helped us out of our
+difficulty. He could pilot us, he said, to a retired bay at the back of
+the island, by the east side, where we could land a small party in
+boats, well armed with Sniders and our Winchester repeater; and Jack,
+who had slept all night, and was therefore the fresher of the two, would
+show us a path through the thick tropical underbrush by which we could
+approach the village from the rear, while the _Albatross_ ran round
+again with the remainder of the crew, and brought our brass
+thirty-pounder to bear upon the savages from the open harbor.
+
+This plan was at once received with universal approbation, and we
+proceeded forthwith to put it into execution.
+
+Steering cautiously round the island, under cover of the mist, and
+fortunately unperceived by the assembled natives, who were too much
+occupied with their _sing-sing_ to be engaged in scanning the offing, we
+reached at last the little retired bay of which Martin had spoken, and
+got ready our boat to land our military party. It was ticklish work, for
+we could afford to land only ten, all told, with Jack for our guide; but
+each man was armed with a good rifle and ammunition, and the habit of
+discipline made our little band, we believed, more than a match for
+those untutored savages. Nassaline, also, joined the military party,
+while seven men were left as a naval reserve. Silently and cautiously we
+landed on the white sandy beach, and turned with Jack into the thick
+tangled brake of tropical brushwood.
+
+Meanwhile, my brother Jim, with Martin to guide him, undertook to take
+the _Albatross_ round to the regular harbor; for Martin fortunately knew
+every twist and turn of those tortuous reef-channels, having been
+accustomed to navigate them from his childhood upwards, both in the
+mission-boat and in the native canoes which frequently put to sea for
+the _bêche-de-mer_ fishery.
+
+Our plan of action, as arranged beforehand, was for the military party
+to wait about in the woods at the back of the village till the
+_Albatross_ hove in sight off the mouth of the harbor. Then, the moment
+she appeared, she was to fire a blank shot towards the Chief's hut with
+her thirty-pounder; and at the same moment, we of the surprise party
+were to fall upon the savages, and before they could recover from their
+first surprise, demand the instant restitution of the missionary and his
+family.
+
+Everything depended now upon the two boys. If Jack failed to show us the
+path aright--if Martin drove the _Albatross_ upon reef or rock--all
+would be up with us, and the savages would massacre our whole party in
+cold blood, as they proposed to do with Macglashin and his little ones.
+I trembled to think on how slender a thread those four precious human
+lives depended. After all, they were but lads, mere children almost, and
+the rash confidence of youth might easily deceive them. But I decided,
+none the less, to trust to their instincts and their keen affection for
+their friends to see us through in our need. If that wouldn't lead us
+right, I felt sure in my own soul no human aid could possibly save the
+unhappy prisoners.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                               HOT WORK.
+
+
+Jack led us from the beach over the white coral sand straight up to the
+wood, and after looking about for a while to make sure of his bearings
+among the huge fallen logs, hit at last upon a faint trail that led
+straggling through the forest--a trail scarcely worn into the semblance
+of a path by the bare feet of naked savages. Following his guidance, we
+plunged at once, with some doubtful misgivings, into the deep gloom of
+the woodland, and found ourselves immediately in a genuine equatorial
+thicket, where mouldering trunks of palms encumbered the vague path, and
+great rope-like lianas hung down in loops from the trees overhead, to
+block our way at every second step through that fatiguing underbrush.
+The day was warm, even as we travelers who know the world judge warmth
+in the tropical South Pacific; and the moist heat of that basking,
+swampy lowland, all laden with miasma from the decaying leaves, seemed
+to oppress us with its deadly effluvia and its enervating softness at
+every yard we went through the jungle. Moreover, we had to carry our
+arms and ammunition among that tangled brake; and as our rifles kept
+catching continually in the creepers that drooped in festoons from the
+branches, while our feet got simultaneously entangled in the roots and
+trailing stems that straggled underfoot, you can easily imagine for
+yourself that ours was indeed no pleasant journey. However, we
+persevered with dogged English perseverance; the sailors tramped on and
+wiped their foreheads with their sleeves from time to time; while poor
+Jack marched bravely at our head with an indomitable pluck which
+reflected the highest credit on Mr. Macglashin's training.
+
+The only one who seemed to make light of the toil was our black boy,
+Nassaline.
+
+We went single file, of course, along the narrow trail, which every here
+and there divided to right or left in the midst of the brake with most
+puzzling complexity. At every such division or fork in the track, Jack
+halted for a moment and cast his eye dubiously to one side and the
+other, at last selecting the trail that seemed best to him. Nassaline,
+too, helped us not a little by his savage instinct for finding his way
+through trackless jungle. For my own part, I could never have believed
+any road on earth could possibly be so tortuous; and at last, at the end
+of the twenty-fifth turn or thereabouts, I ventured to say in a very low
+voice (for we were stealing along in dead silence), "Why, Jack, I
+believe you're leading us round and round in a circle, and you'll bring
+us out again in the end at the very same bay where we first landed!"
+
+"Hush!" Jack answered, with one finger on his lip. "We're drawing near
+the outskirts of the village now. You must be very quiet. I can just see
+the grass roof of Taranaka's temple peeping above the brushwood to the
+right. In three minutes more we shall be out in the open."
+
+And sure enough he told the truth. Almost as he ceased speaking, the
+noise of savage voices fell full upon my ear from the village in front,
+and I could hear the natives, in their hideous corroboree, beating hard
+upon their hollow drums of stretched skin, and shouting in the dance to
+their drunken comrades.
+
+It was a ghastly noise, but it did our hearts good just then to hear it.
+
+I could almost have clapped my hand upon Jack's back and given him three
+cheers for his gallant guidance when we saw the village plot opening up
+in front of us, and the naked savages, in their war-paint and feathers,
+guarding the door of Taranaka's temple. But the necessity for caution
+compelled me to preserve a solemn silence. So we crouched as still as
+mice behind a clumpy thicket of close-leaved tiro bushes, and peeped out
+from our ambush through the dense foliage to keep an eye upon the scene
+till the _Albatross_ hove into sight in the harbor.
+
+"My father and my mother must still be there," Jack whispered under his
+breath, but in a deep tone of relief. "The Tanaki men are guarding them
+exactly as they did when Martin and I left the island. I almost think I
+can see Miriam's head through the open door. We shall be in time still
+to deliver them from these bloodthirsty wretches."
+
+"In what direction must we look for the _Albatross_?" I whispered back.
+"Will she come in from the south there?"
+
+"O, no!" Jack answered in a very low voice. "That's an island to the
+right--a little rocky island that guards the harbor. There's deep water
+close in by the shore that side. Martin 'll try to bring her in the
+northern way, so that the natives mayn't see her till she's close upon
+the village. It's a difficult channel to the north, all full of reefs
+and sunken rocks; but I think he understands it, he's swam in it so
+often. We won't see her at all till she's right in the harbor and just
+opposite the temple."
+
+We were dying of thirst now, and longing for drink, but could get
+nothing to quench our drought. "What I would give," I muttered to Tom
+Blake, "for a drink of water!"
+
+"If Captain want water," Nassaline answered, "me soon get him some." And
+he made a gash with his knife in the stem of a sort of gourd that
+climbed over the bushes, from which there slowly oozed and trickled out
+a sort of gummy juice that relieved to some degree our oppressive
+sensations. All the men began at once cutting and chewing it, with
+considerable satisfaction. It wasn't as good as a glass of British beer,
+I will freely admit; but still, it was better than nothing, any way.
+
+By this time it was nearly half-past six, and we watched eagerly to see
+what action the natives would take as soon as they finished their
+night-long _sing-sing_. Lying flat on the ground, with our rifles ready
+at hand, and our heads just raised to look out among the foliage, we
+kept observing their movements cautiously through the thick brushwood.
+
+At a quarter to seven we saw some bustle and commotion setting in on a
+sudden in front of the temple; and presently a tall and sinister-looking
+native, who, Jack whispered to me, was the Chief of Tanaki, came up from
+the village, where the _sing-sing_ had taken place, and stood by the
+door of the thatched grass-house. We could distinctly hear him call the
+missionary to come out in pigeon English; and next moment our
+unfortunate countryman staggered forth, with his little daughter half
+fainting in his arms, and stood out in the bare space between the tomb
+of Taranaka and the spot where we were lying.
+
+Oh! how I longed to take a shot at that miscreant black fellow.
+
+At sight of his father, worn with fatigue and pale with the terror of
+that agonizing moment, Jack almost cried aloud in his mingled joy and
+apprehension; but I clapped my hand on his mouth and kept him still for
+the moment. "Not a sound, my boy, not a sound," I whispered low, "till
+the time comes for firing!"
+
+"Shall we give it them hot now?" Tom Blake inquired low at my ear next
+moment. But I waved him aside cautiously.
+
+"Not yet," I answered, "unless the worst comes to the worst, and we see
+our people in pressing and immediate danger; we'd better do nothing till
+the _Albatross_ heaves in sight. Her gun will frighten them. To fire now
+would be to expose ourselves and our friends there to unnecessary
+danger."
+
+"All right, sir," Tom murmured low in reply. "You know best, of course.
+But I must say, it'd do my 'eart good to up an' pepper 'em!"
+
+"Come out, white woman!" we heard the Chief say next with insolent
+familiarity; and Mrs. Macglashin stepped out, a deplorable figure, with
+her boy's hand twined in hers, and her white lips twitching with horror
+for her little ones. It made one's blood boil so to see it that we could
+hardly resist the temptation as we looked to fire at all hazards, and
+let them know good friends were even now close at hand to help and
+deliver them.
+
+"Whether the _Albatross_ heaves in sight or not," I whispered to Tom
+Blake, "we must fire at them soon--within five minutes--and sell our
+lives as dearly as we can. I can't stand this much longer. It's too
+terrible a strain. Come what may, I must give the word and at them!"
+
+"Quite right, sir," says Tom. "What's the use of delaying?"
+
+And, indeed, I began to be terribly afraid by this time there was
+something very wrong indeed somewhere. Could Martin have missed his way
+among those difficult shoals, and run our trusty vessel helplessly on
+the rocks and reefs? It looked very like it. They were certainly
+overdue; for even at the present crippled rate of speed, the good old
+_Albatross_ had had plenty of time, I judged, to round the point and get
+back safe again into the deep water of the harbor. If she failed in this
+our hour of need, the natives would surround us and cut us to pieces in
+a mass, for our best reliance was in our solid brass thirty-pounder. I
+began to tremble in my shoes for some time for the possible upshot. Over
+and over again I glanced eagerly towards the point for that longed-for
+white nose of hers to appear round the corner.
+
+At last, unable to restrain my curiosity any longer, I rose to my feet
+and peered across the bushes. As I did so, I saw the savages seize
+Macglashin in their arms, and range the four poor fugitives in a line
+together. My blood curdled. The Chief and the ten savages with the
+Sniders stood in a row, half fronting us where we lay. Macglashin and
+his wife were fortunately out of line of fire for our rifles. "Now, we
+can delay no longer," I cried. "He means murder. The moment the black
+fellow gives the word of command, fire at once upon him and his men,
+boys. Take steady aim. No matter what comes. Let the poor souls have a
+run for their lives, any way."
+
+As I spoke, the Chief uttered in Kanaka the native words for "One, two,
+three," with loud drunken laughter.
+
+At the sound of the Chief's voice, the savages loosed the four wretched
+Europeans. At the very same sound we all fired simultaneously--and six
+of the black monsters fell writhing on the ground, while the Chief and
+the four others, taken completely by surprise, dropped their rifles in
+their supreme astonishment.
+
+"Forward, boys, and secure them!" I cried, dashing out into the open,
+and waving my hat to the astounded missionary. "Here we are, sir. Run
+this way! We're friends. We've come to your rescue. Catch the Chief at
+once, lads; and hooray for the _Albatross!_"
+
+For just as I spoke, to my joy and relief, her good white nose showed at
+last round the point; and next instant, the boom! boom! of her jolly
+brass thirty-pounder, fired in the very nick of time, completed the
+discomfiture of the astonished savages.
+
+Before they knew where they were, they found themselves hemmed in
+between a raking cross-fire from our Sniders on one side, and the heavy
+gun of the _Albatross_ on the other. The tables were now completely
+turned. We charged at them, running. Macglashin, seizing the situation
+at a glance, caught up one of the rifles belonging to the wounded men,
+which had been flung upon the ground, and, hardly yet realizing his
+miraculous escape, joined our little party as an armed recruit with
+surprising alacrity. For the next ten minutes there was a terrible scene
+of noise and confusion. The blacks advanced upon us, swarming up from
+the village like bees or wasps, and it was only by a hand-to-hand fight
+with our bayonets--for we had fortunately brought them in case of close
+quarters--that we kept our dusky enemy at bay. At last, however, after a
+smart hand-to-hand contest, we secured the Chief, and tied him safely
+with the rope he had loosed from Macglashin. Then we seized the
+remaining Sniders that lay upon the ground, while the men of the
+village, drunk and stupefied, began to fall back a little and molest us
+from a distance.
+
+"Now, put the lady and children in the center, boys," I cried, at the
+top of my voice, "and let the Chief march along with us as a hostage.
+Down to the shore, while the _Albatross_ boat puts out to save us!" Then
+I turned to the savages, and called out in English, "If any one of you
+dares to fire at us, I give you fair warning, we shoot your Chief! Hold
+off there, all of you!"
+
+To my great delight, Nassaline, standing forward as I spoke, translated
+my words to them into their own tongue, and waving them back with his
+hands made a little alley for us through the midst to regain the shore
+by. Smart boy, Nassaline!
+
+After a moment, however, the natives once more began to crowd round us,
+as we started to march, in very threatening attitudes, with their
+Sniders and hatchets. At one time I almost thought they would overpower
+us; but just then Jim, who was watching the proceedings with his glass
+from the deck of the _Albatross_, and saw exactly how matters stood,
+created a judicious diversion at the exact right moment by firing a
+little grape-shot plump into the heart of the grass huts of the village,
+and bowling over a roof or two before the very eyes of the astonished
+savages. They fell back at once, and began to make signs of desiring a
+parley. So we halted on the spot, with the lady and children still
+carefully guarded, and held up our handkerchiefs in sign of truce. Then
+Nassaline, aided by our sailor who understood the Kanaka language, began
+to palaver with them. He told them in plain and simple terms we must
+first be allowed to take the lady and children in safety to the
+_Albatross_, and that we would afterwards come back to treat at greater
+length with their head men as to the Chief's safety. To this, after some
+demur, the black fellows assented; and we beckoned to Jim accordingly by
+a preconcerted sign to send the boat ashore to us, to fetch off the
+fugitives. At the same time we retreated in military order, in a small
+hollow square, to the beach, still taking good care to protect in the
+midst our terrified non-combatants.
+
+As for the Chief, he marched before us, with his hands tied, and his
+feet free, led by a rope, the ends of which I held myself, with the aid
+of two of my sailors. A more ridiculously crestfallen or disappointed
+creature than that drunken and conquered savage at that particular
+moment it has never yet been my fate to light upon.
+
+We reached the beach in safety, and sent Mrs. Macglashin and the
+children aboard, with Jack to accompany them. Then we turned to parley
+with the discomfited savages. Jim kept the thirty-pounder well pointed
+in their direction, with ostentatious precision, and we made them hold
+off along the beach at a convenient distance, where he could rake them
+in security, while we ourselves retained the Chief in our hands, with a
+pistol at his head, as a gentle reminder that we meant to stand no
+nonsense.
+
+After a few minutes' parley, conducted chiefly by our
+Kanaka-speaking sailor, with an occasional explanation put in by our
+assistant-interpreter, Nassaline, we arrived at an understanding, in
+accordance with which we were to return them their Chief for the time
+being, on consideration of their bringing us down to the beach all the
+Macglashins' goods, and making restitution for the sack of the
+mission-house in dried cocoa-nut, the sole wealth of the island. Those
+were the terms for the immediate present, as a mere personal matter: for
+the rest, we gave the Chief clearly to understand that we intended to
+sail straight away with all our guests for Fiji, there to lay our
+complaint of his conduct before the British High Commissioner in the
+South Pacific. We would then charge him with murder and attempted
+cannibalism, and with stirring up his people to massacre the other
+missionary, and the trader Freeman. We would endeavor to get a gunboat
+sent to the spot, to make official inquiry into the nature of the
+disturbances, and to demand satisfaction on the part of the relations of
+the murdered men. Finally, we would also lay before the Commissioner the
+conduct of the French labor-vessel, and her kidnaping skipper, who had
+instigated the savages to their dastardly attack, and whom I was
+strongly inclined to identify with the captain from whose grip we had
+rescued our friend Nassaline. We gave the Chief to understand,
+therefore, that he must by no means consider himself as scot free,
+merely because we let him go unhurt till trial could be instituted by
+the proper authorities. He must answer hereafter for his high crimes and
+misdemeanors to the Queen's representative.
+
+To all of which the penitent savage merely answered with a sigh:
+
+"Me make mistake. Kill missionary by accident. Man a _oui-oui_ tell me
+Queenie England no care for Scotchman, an' me too much believe him. Now
+Captain tell me Queenie send gunboat for eat me up, and kill all my
+people. No listen any more to man a _oui-oui_."
+
+And then we put off in triumph to the _Albatross_. The family meeting
+that ensued on board when Macglashin stood once more upon a British deck
+with his wife and children, I won't attempt--rough sailor as I am--to
+describe: I don't believe even the special correspondent of a morning
+paper could do full justice to it. To see those two lads, too, catch
+their pretty little sister once more in their arms, and cover her with
+kisses, while she clung to their necks and cried and laughed
+alternately, was a sight to do a man's heart good for another
+twelvemonth. And as we sat that same evening round the cabin-table
+(where our Malay cook had performed wonders of culinary art for the
+occasion), and drank healths all round to everybody concerned in this
+remarkable rescue, the toast that was received with the profoundest
+acclamations from every soul on board, was that of the two brave boys
+whose courage and skill had guided us at last, as if by a miracle, to
+the recovery of all that was nearest and dearest to them.
+
+Indeed, if Martin and Jack don't get the Victoria Cross when we return
+to England, I shall have even a lower opinion than ever before of her
+Majesty's confidential political advisers of all creeds or parties.
+
+
+
+
+                           Transcriber Notes:
+
+Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of
+the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus
+the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in
+the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the
+same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.
+
+Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted.
+
+On page 32, "to" was replaced with "too".
+
+On page 35, "aud" was replaced with "and".
+
+On page 39, "inportance" was replaced with "importance".
+
+On page 82, "reparing" was replaced with "repairing".
+
+On page 97, "Macglasin's" was replaced with "Macglashin's".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wednesday the Tenth, A Tale of the
+South Pacific, by Grant Allen
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43688 ***