We pushed off, then poled along shore till we came to the passage, which was as smooth as glass. Here, on account of the deep water, we had to take to our paddles, and were soon out in the open sea, heading for the vessels. The sun was intensely hot, but we took no heed of it, and congratulated ourselves upon having such a calm sea, instead of having to paddle against a swell, which would have greatly impeded our progress.

For the first mile or so we went along in great style—then, to our consternation, we suddenly ran right into a heavy tide rip, and away we went at the rate of three or four knots an hour to the south-east, and towards the New Britain shore. The belt or tide-rip seemed to be about a mile in width, and although we paddled furiously in the endeavour to get out of the whirling, seething stream, it was in vain—the raft spun round and round with such rapidity that we lost control over, and had to let her go; for not only were we unable to make any headway, but the manner in which we were spinning round would not allow us to keep our feet, and began to make us sea-sick. After half an hour or more of this, we at last saw a chance of getting out of the rip into a side eddy; and, putting forth all our strength, we just succeeded in doing so, only to be menaced by a fresh and more alarming danger.

Yorke, dashing the pouring perspiration from his brow with his hand, had just stood up to get a look at the brigantine and cutter, when he uttered an oath.

"By God, we're in for it now! Look, here's four canoes, filled with niggers, heading dead on for us. The beggars see us, too!"

I stood up beside him, and saw, about a quarter of a mile away, four canoes, each of which was carrying six or eight natives, coming towards us at a furious rate. They were, like all New Britain canoes, very low down in the water, which, together with our own troubles when we were in the tide rip, had prevented our seeing them long before.

"Lucky we have not wasted any of our cartridges" said Yorke grimly; "we'll give them all the fight they want. But let them get closer, while we head back for the ships. We must get out of this current—we can lick the niggers easy enough; but if we get into that tide-rip again, we'll be carried out of sight of the brigantine by midday."

Plunging our paddles into the water, we sent our bamboo craft along till we were in absolute safety as far as the tide-rip was concerned. Then Yorke laid down his paddle.

"We're all right now, Drake; and now we'll give these man-chawing beggars a bit of a surprise. They mean to knock us on the head in another ten minutes, and take our carcasses ashore for to-night's dinner. You are the younger man, and can shoot better than I, so I'll be polite and give you first show. Sight for five hundred yards for a trial shot, at the leading canoe. But wait a minute—don't stand up."

He quickly piled up the young coconuts in a firm heap, and then stood over me, his own rifle in hand, whilst I knelt on the bamboos and placed my rifle on the top of the heap of coconuts.

I am now, at this time of life, ashamed of the savage instinct that in those days filled me with a certain joy in destroying human life, unthinkingly, and without compunction. But I had been brought up in a rough school, among men who thought it not only justifiable, but correct and proper to shoot a man—black, or white, or brown, or yellow—who had done them any wrong. It had been my lot, in the Solomon Islands, to witness one of the most hideous and appalling massacres of a ship's crew that was ever perpetrated by natives—a massacre that had filled my youthful mind with the most intense and unreasoning hatred of all "niggers," as we called the natives of Melanesia. The memory of that awful scene had burned itself upon my brain, for the captain and mate of the vessel were dear friends of mine, and they and their men had been cruelly slaughtered, not for any wrong they had done—for they were good, straight men—but simply because their blind confidence in the savage natives invited their destruction.

*****

I steadied my rifle upon the top of the heap of coconuts, and waited a second or two till every man in the first canoe was in line. Then I pulled the trigger, and was thrown back bleeding and unconscious, for the rifle burst just in front of the breech block, which blew out and struck me on the top of my head, nearly fracturing my skull.

When I came to again Yorke's face was bending over me.

"We're all right, Drake. The brigantine is within a mile of us, coming up with a light air, and we'll be aboard in half an hour. How do you feel, my son?"

"Rockotty. Did the rifle burst?"

"Burst? It burst like a cannon, all but killed you, and a splinter hurt me in the eye. Drake, my boy, the next time you do the Gadarene swine trick with a cheap German Snider in your hand, see that the barrel is clear before you fire it. When you fell that time, your rifle barrel must have been pretty badly choked with sand and coral pebbles... Now lie still, and don't worry like an old maid who has lost her cat. You can do nothing, and will only be a damned nuisance if you do try to do anything. The brigantine will be here presently, and you'll get your head attended to, and have 'pretty-pretty' plasters stuck on your nose and other parts of your facial beauties."

"Where are the niggers?" I asked.

"Gone, gone, my dear boy. Vanished, but not vanished in time enough for five or six of them. I have used every one of our cartridges on the four canoes, and have had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that I have not used them in vain. Now stop talking, and let me attend to the ship—the bamboo ship... There, put your head on my coat; and don't talk."

*****

When the Fray Bentos sailed up alongside the raft I was lifted on board, and placed in my berth, and long days passed ere I saw Yorke again.

When I did see him the brigantine was lying at anchor at Rook Island, and Guest was in my cabin telling me the story of the hurricane—of how he had lost the two boats within an hour—one being carried away when the brigantine was all but thrown over on her beam ends, and the other—the longboat—swept away with everything else on deck—guns, deck-houses, bulwarks and all.

"How we escaped smashing into some reef or another I don't know," said Guest; "but the strangest thing about it all is that Yorke's cutter, manned by native seamen, managed to stick so close to the Fray Bentos; for when I, running before the hurricane, with my decks swept with tremendous seas, suddenly ran into smooth water, brought to in fifteen fathoms, and dropped anchor, there was the Francesca cheek by jowl, alongside of me."

"Kanaka sailors' eyesight," I said. "Napoleon never lost sight of the brigantine for a moment! And, talking about eyesight, how is Yorke's eye?"

"Bad, bad, my boy. It is destroyed entirely, and he is now on board here, in my cabin. He has been asking for you. Do you feel strong enough to get up and see him?"

I rose at once, and went into Guest's cabin. Yorke was lying in the skipper's bunk, and as I entered he extended both hands to me, and smiled cheerfully, though his left eye was covered with a bandage, and his brave, square-set face was white and drawn.

"How are you, Drake, my boy? We had a narrow squeak, didn't we, from the niggers? And here is Captain Guest worrying and tormenting himself that he could not fire a gun to scare them off."

I held his big, right hand between my own, and pressed it gently, for there was something in his one remaining eye that told me the end of all was near.

"Goodbye, dear lad.... Goodbye, Captain Guest. I know what is the matter with me—erysipelas—and erysipelas to a big, fat man like me means death... and if you would put a bullet through my head now you would do me a good turn... But here, Guest, and you, Drake... your hands. I'll be dead by to-morrow morning, and want to say goodbye, and wish good luck to you both, before I begin babbling silly twaddle about things that are of no account now... of no account now... not worth speaking about now. But the South Seas are a rotten sort of a place, anyway."

THE END