it seems the only man who's ever seen those rocks is Haymet himself. They've been searched for since, and nobody's seen a sign of 'em. But they're there, all right. There or thereabouts. Because that Haymet didn't only see 'em-he hit 'em! And so I was wondering if I hadn't better keep away to the nor❜ard and give the place a wide berth, when I happened to read something else in the Directions which made me sit up and take notice. If you'll hand me the book therePacific Islands, Eastern Groups it is-I'll show you the very words which started the trouble. Look! Page 26. Page 26. Here it is. "Bank," it says. "A depth of 68 fathoms, rock, was found by the Fabert in lat. 24° 7' S., long. 158° 33′ W. This vessel was at the time searching for a low island which had been reported to exist in this neighbourhood, but of which she saw nothing." There ! It's a good two years since I read that, but I remember it all plain still. "A low island reported to exist in this neighbourhood." A lost island that didn't belong to nobody. And, if I could find it, it would belong to me! I'd just worked out my noon sight, and it put me about sixty mile to the north-eastward of where that island was supposed to be. And so well, who wouldn't I altered course to sou'-west, and sent a hand aloft into the fore spreaders with orders to keep his eyes peeled. I didn't really expect to sight anything, VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLI. but there was a chance, and I thought, as I was around that way, I might just as well have a look-see. Well, we didn't sight a thing. We'd run our distance before it got dark, when there wasn't anything in sight from aloft at all. I went up myself to make sure. So then I made up my mind that if there was a new island knocking about, it wasn't in the place we were looking for it. I didn't feel like losing any more time either, and, to tell you the truth, I was beginning to feel a bit of a fool by then for having run so far off my course already. So I bore away to the west'ard again and turned in. I don't know what time it was when we hit the place. All I can say is it was mighty dark when we struck. I was pitched clean out of my bunk, and I brought up with my head against something hard enough to knock me clean out. Then, I suppose, a green sea must have come in down the companion, because, when I came to, the cabin was full of water, and I was pretty near drowned. It was the feel of the water, though, that brought me round, and then I crawled up out of there quick. When I got on deck I could tell at once the schooner was done for. There was a biggish sea running, and she was bashing and grinding on the coral something horrid. Both masts were down and lying in a tangle of gear on the fore-deck, and I C 2 think the mess must have jammed the fo'c'sle hatch and trapped the watch below. I sang out, but nobody answered, so I guessed the same sea which roused me must have washed the mate and the hand at the wheel overboard. Then another sea broke aboard and took charge of me, and the next thing I knew I was clear of the schooner and swimming about in the dark. It was as black as the innards of a cow, and I couldn't see much of anything; but when something hit me in the mouth, I grabbed it and found I'd got hold of one of our hatch-covers. There wasn't much I could do then, of course, except hang on and drift and wait for daylight, so I just hung on and waited. But I want to tell you that was a perishing long wait. Yes. I don't want to have to wait so long again for anything. It seemed as if I was adrift out there for weeks; but it couldn't have been so very long, because I found out afterwards the reef the schooner struck on was less than a mile to wind'ard of the atoll, and, when the light came at last, there I was, only a couple of hundred yards from the shore. There was a mighty nasty surf breaking on the beach that I didn't like the look of at all. I could see I'd get smashed up if I tried to land there; and when I noticed the current was carrying me along the shore, I made up my mind to wait until I'd drifted abreast of some place where the sea wasn't breaking so bad. The sea was running big, you understand, all the time, and every now and again I'd get washed off that hatch of mine, and I'd have the devil's own job getting back to it again. However, I daren't face that surf on the beach, so I had to stick it out where I was and wait for something to turn up. After a goodish while I noticed I was drifting up to a break in the shore line, and it wasn't long before it opened up, and I could see it was the entrance into a lagoon. I knew then, if only the tide was on the flood, that I was all right; but if it was ebbing, I'd be done for, because the water runs out through most of those lagoon entrances like a regular race, and I was scared I might be out of luck and get caught in it and carried right out to sea. The entrance opened out slowly all the while, and every time a sea'd lift me I could look right into that lagoon. It was as calm as a pond in there, all quiet and peaceful, and the water was shining in the sun and coloured like the inside of a pearl shell. And I can tell you that beach inside looked mighty good to me. I was so close in I could see the little ripples just lapping on the sand, and there I was outside, getting bashed about by those damned great breakers that burst on the seaward shore with such a roar and a crash that it looked, by God, as if they were trying to smash up the whole island. I was all in by that time, too, and if I'd been a praying sort, I guess I'd have prayed just then for something to come and get me clear of those seas and carry me into that quiet lagoon where it all looked so calm and safe. But I got in all rightwithout having to do any praying either. For my luck was in. The tide was on the flood; and when the current got hold of me it just sucked me through that entrance at the rate of knots. One minute I was being knocked about by the seas outside, and the next there I was, floating in the calm water, all safe and comfortable, with the land and the cocoa-nut trees closing in all round me. And you can bet your sweet life I was mighty pleased to be there. Well, there you are. That's how I discovered the island. It's a low island, and just like every other atoll you've ever seen, except that there isn't a trader or a tin roof, or even a missionary or a bottle of good liquor in the whole place. So, you can see, it was a real savage island I'd come across that'd never been civilised, and I saw at once I was the first white man who'd ever been there. There was a canoe with some Kanakas in it fishing, and they spotted me as soon as I drifted in. Great big, hefty, smiling beggars they were, and one of them lifted me into that canoe as if I was a baby. And I weigh pretty near 200 pounds, which'll show you the strength of the brutes. They made all manner of fuss over me. Rubbed me down to get the blood running again, and knocked off the top of a green nut and gave me a swig at it. They seemed pleased, too, about finding me, but I could see my white skin surprised them some. They couldn't seem to get over the colour of me, and I think it was my red hair that puzzled the beggars most. Anyhow, it was plain they'd never seen any one like me before. When they got me ashore all hands was lined up on the beach, shouting; and they laughed and patted me on the back and carried on generally as if I was welcome and they was glad to see me. All but the kids, that is. It's funny, but if I as much as looked at a kid it'd give a squeal and clear out of there as if it thought I was going to eat it. The men weren't bashful, though, by a long chalk. They all handled me and stroked me down as if they thought I wasn't real; but when they began to feel my hair and pat me on the head, I hauled off and showed 'em pretty quick I didn't want any of that. You see, I thought I'd better show them right off it wouldn't do for any darned natives to make free that way with a white man. The thing that struck me most at first was the size of the beggars. I'm a big man myself, as you can see, but the most of that crowd were a long way bigger than I am. It's a island to see if there was anything left of the schooner. There wasn't a sign of her. She'd broken up on that offshore reef and gone altogether. There wasn't a splinter of her left, not even a bit of wreckage drifted up on the beach. And none of the hands had come ashore either. They was all drowned but me. Or else the sharks got 'em, because none of them ever showed up-not even as stiff 'uns. Well, they weren't much good, anyway; none of 'em, but it broke me up a bit to think I'd seen the last of the old Tropic Bird. I'd had that schooner pretty nigh ten years, and I was kind of fond of her. She handled as easy as a bird, too-but what's the use of talking? fact. And there wasn't a sick to the wind'ard side of the or weak-looking nigger amongst the lot; and none of that damned coughing or even a even a sign of any of those nastylooking sores on 'em like you see all over the rest of the islands now. They had a look about them as though they might have been some sort of Samoans once; but they were all much bigger and more cheerful and healthy than any any Kanaka you'll find round about Apia or Pango Pango these days. And I remember I thought to myself then that, if I could only get some of that crowd on to a plantation, they'd make the finest lot of labour a man could wish to have the handling of. Well, we'll handle the beggars yet, you and I will, partner. I guess we'll show 'em. don't forget I've got a thirst that's over two years in the pickling. Give that bottle a fair wind. And Well, as I'm telling you, there I was, marooned on an island that wasn't even down on the charts, and with a darned slim chance of ever getting off the place again. The chap who'd picked me up -Falapa his name was-he took charge of me. And he seemed to like the job. took me to his hut, and from the way he went on it was easy to see he meant me to make myself at home there. So I did. I had a good feed, and then I turned in on his pile of mats and slept like a dead man. Next morning I walked round He I sat on the beach for a goodish bit, thinking things out, with that big fool of a Falapa rubbing my back-that being his way, I suppose, of trying to show he was sorry. So I cleared him to blazes out of that, and then I did some hard thinking. I felt kind of down on my luck for a bit, and it looked as if there I was, properly cast away and done for; but it wasn't so long before I'd got it figured out that the best thing I could do was to make the most of things for myself on the island. So I took a walk round to see what was doing. It's a smallish atoll, about 12 feet high at most, and, except for a stretch of half-tide reef on the west, it's all covered over with cocoa nut palms. It's only two or three hundred yards across it from beach to beach; but all the same it must be nearly fifteen miles long, because it's bent round the lagoon like a frame around a looking-glass, and the lagoon's about five miles long by three wide. There's two villages-Falapa's, and one on the other side of the lagoon, and between the two of them there's a couple of hundred niggers all told. And they're the queerest lot of Kanakas I've ever seen. What strikes you first is the size and healthy looks of the brutes. And, though you won't hardly believe me, I couldn't find a sick or an undersized nigger on the whole island. Nor any very old ones either, which seemed queer; but I found out afterwards why that was. They didn't seem to know what sickness meant, and it seems the only way they ever did die was by accident, like getting drowned or falling out of a tree or tree or something. And when that happened, they'd put the corpse in a canoe with a lot of green cocoa-nuts and the chap's fishing-gear and cooking-pots and so on. They'd rig up a small square sail in the bows of the thing, and then launch the whole business, corpse and all, from the loo'ard side of the island. It'd go sailing off down wind, of course, right out to sea before the Trade wind, and that'd be the end of that funeral. Well, that was all right. That was as handy a way of getting rid of a corpse as burying it; but what got me was to find that those blame savages would do the same thing to any one who happened to get hurt bad, such as breaking a leg or anything like that. If he didn't heal up or the chap looked like pegging out, then adrift he'd have to go, just as if he was dead already. There was a girl, too—a bit after I got there that was,who cut her foot on the reef, and and the coral must have poisoned it. Her leg swelled up big, and I guess maybe she was booked anyway; but she wasn't dead by a long shot when they triced her up and sent her sailing off in a canoe to the west'ard. I raised a fuss about that, because I'd been kind of keeping my eye on that girl-Fa'ala was worth looking at. But for all I could do it wasn't any good. had to go. The queer thing was that all of them, including the girl herself, seemed mighty surprised at me kicking up a row about that business. Their notion was, as far as I could make out from Falapa's jabbering, that if you were sick or dying, the natural place to get on with the job was out at sea by yourself, and not on the island. Because the island, according to them, was a place made for good things only, and not for anything bad or rotten. But as they use the same word for sick and "bad," it wasn't easy to make out what it was exactly they were getting at. She |