The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn

Book Two – Chapter Eleven.
Mutiny on Board – Far to the South’ard

“Nothing certain at sea except the unexpected.” The truth of this was sadly exemplified by the terrible calamity which had befallen the Sea Flower– and befallen her so suddenly, too!

Only one week ago she was sailing over a rippling sea on the wings of a favouring breeze, every wavelet dancing joyously in the sunlight. On board, whether fore or aft, there was nothing but hope, happiness, and contentment. Till —

“The angel of death spread his wings on the blast.”

Now all is terror and gloom – a gloom and a terror that have struck deep into the heart of every one who knows what death and sorrow mean.

A breeze has sprung up at last, and both Halcott and Tandy have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it will be better to steer for colder weather. So southward the Sea Flower flies, under every stitch of canvas, with studding-sails low and aloft. Shall the plague be stayed? Heaven alone can tell!

As it is, the depression hangs like a dark, foreboding cloud over the ship.

No one cares to talk much by day or by night. The men sit silently at their meals, with lowered brows and frightened looks. They eye each other askance; they know not who may be the next. They even avoid each other as much as possible while walking the decks. Hardly will a man volunteer to nurse the sick. The hammocks containing these hang on the lee side, and the crew keep far away indeed.

But they smoke from morn till night.

Halcott himself and little Fitz are the only nurses, and both are worn out for want of rest. With their own hands they sew up the hammock of the dead, unhook it, lift the gruesome burden on to the top of the bulwark, and, while the captain with uncovered head raises his eyes to heaven and utters a prayer, the body is committed to the deep, to be torn in pieces next minute by the tigers of the sea.

Poor little Nelda! She is as merry as ever, playing with Bob or the ’Ral on the quarterdeck, and it is strange, in this ship of death, to hear her musical voice raised in song or laughter in the midst of silence and gloom!

No wonder that, hearing this, the delirious or the dying fancy themselves back once more in their village homes in England.

Nelda wonders why the captain, who used to romp and play with her, tries all he can now to avoid her; and why little Fitz, the curious, round-faced, laughing, black boy, with the two rows of alabaster teeth, never comes aft.

Halcott himself never goes below either. He insists upon taking his meals on deck. Nor will he permit Tandy or Ransey to come forward. If he can, he means to confine the awful plague to the fore part of the ship.

They say that in a case of this kind it is always the good who go first. In this instance the adage spoke truly.

Terrible to say, in less than a fortnight no less than thirteen fell victims to the scourge. But still more, more awful, the crew now became mutinous.

Luckily, all arms, and ammunition as well, were safely stored aft.

Durdley was chief mutineer – chief scoundrel! Out of the fourteen men left alive, only four were true to the captain, the others were ready to follow Durdley.

This fellow became a demon now – a demon in command of demons; for they had found some grog which had been in charge of the second mate – who was dead – and excited themselves into fury with it.

Durdley, the dark and ugly man, rushed to the screen-berth where Halcott was trying to ease the sufferings of a poor dying man.

He was as white as a ghost; even his lips were pale.

Beware of men, reader, who get white when angry. They are dangerous!

“Here, Halcott,” cried Durdley, “drop your confounded mummery, and listen to me. Lay aft here, my merry men, lay aft.”

Nine men, chiefly Finns and other foreigners, armed with ugly knives and iron marline-spikes, quickly stationed themselves behind him.

“Now, Halcott, your game’s up. You brought this plague into the ship yourself. By rights you should die. But I depose you. I am captain now, and my brave boys will obey me, and me alone.

“You hear?” he shouted, for Halcott stood a few paces from him, calmly looking him in the face.

“I hear.”

“Then, cusses on you, why don’t ye speak? You’ll be allowed to live, I say, both you and Tandy, on one condition.”

“And that is – ?”

“That you alter your course, and steer straight away to the nearest land – the Falkland Isles – at once.”

“I refuse. Back, you mutinous dog! back! I say. Would you dare to stab your captain? Your blood be,” – here the captain’s revolver rang sharp and clear, and Durdley fell to the deck – “on your own cowardly head.”

There was a wild yell and a rush now, and though the captain fired again and again, he was speedily overpowered.

The revolver was snatched from his hand, and he was borne down by force of numbers.

But assistance was at hand.

“Now, lads, give it to them! Hurrah!”

It was Tandy himself, with the four good men and true, who had run aft between decks to inform the mate of the mutiny.

All were armed with rifles, but these they only clubbed. So fiercely did they fight, that the mutineers speedily dropped their knives and iron marline-spikes, and were driven below, yelling for mercy like the cowards they were.

The captain, though bruised, was otherwise intact. Nor was Durdley dead, though he had lost much blood from a wound – the revolver bullet having crashed through the arm above the elbow, and through the outside of the chest as well. But two Finns lay stark and stiff beside the winch.

Even to tragedy there is always a ridiculous side or aspect, and on the present occasion this was afforded by the strange behaviour of Bob and the Admiral during the terrible mêlée. It is not to be supposed that Bob would be far away from his master when danger threatened him.

Seeing Ransey Tansey, rifle in hand, follow his father to join in repelling the mutineers, it occurred to him at once that two might be of some assistance. It did not take the faithful tyke a moment to make up his mind, but he thought he might be of more use behind the mutineers than in front of them. So he outflanked the whole fighting party, and the attack he made upon the rear of Durdley’s following was very effective.

The ’Ral could not fight, it is true, but his excitement during the battle was extreme. Round and round the deck he ran or flew, with his head and neck straight out in front of him, and his screams of terror and anger added considerably to the clamour and din going on forward. The poor bird really seemed to know that men were being killed, and seeing his master engaged, he would fain have helped him had he been able.

Of the ten men then who had mutinied three were wounded, including the ringleader, two were dead, and the remaining five were now taken on deck and roped securely alongside the winch to await their sentence. The deck was quickly cleared of the dead, and all evidences of the recent struggle were removed.

Durdley resembled nothing more nearly than a captured bird of prey. He was stern, silent, grim, and vindictive. Had he not been utterly prostrate and powerless, he would have sprung like a catamount at the throats of the very men who were dressing his wounds, and these were Tandy and Halcott himself.

Yet it was evident that he was not receiving the treatment he had expected, nor that which he would have dealt out to Halcott had he fallen into his hands.

“Why don’t you throw me overboard?” he growled at last, with a fearful oath. “Sharks are the best surgeons; their work is soon over. I’d have served you so, if my lily-livered scoundrels had only fought a trifle better, hang them!

“Ay, and you too, Mr Tandy, with your solemn face, if you hadn’t consented to take us straight to land!”

“Keep your mind easy,” said Halcott, quietly. “I’ll get rid of you as soon as possible, you may be well sure.”

“Do your worst – I defy you. But if that worst isn’t death, I’ll bide my time. I’d rather die three times over than lie here like a half-stuck pig.”

During the fight little Nelda was in terrible distress, and, but for Janeira, she would doubtless have rushed forward, as she wanted to do, in order to “help daddy and ’Ansey.”

Bob was the first to bring her tidings of the victory.

He came aft at full gallop, almost threw himself down the companion-way, and next moment was licking the child’s tear-bedewed cheeks.

She could see joy in the poor dog’s face. He was full of it, and trying as much as ever dog did try to talk. Perhaps he never fully realised till now how awkward it is for a doggie to want a tail. But he did what he could, nevertheless, with the morsel of fag-end he had.

“Don’t cry, little mistress,” he was trying hard to say, “don’t cry. It’s all right now. And it was such fun to see them fighting, and I fought too. Oh, didn’t I bite and tear the rascals just.”

Even the ’Ral seemed to know that the danger was past and gone for a time, and nothing would suffice to allay his feelings save executing a kind of wild jig right on the top of the skylight – a thing he had never done before.

But although quieted now, Nelda was not quite content, till down rushed Ransey Tansey himself. With a joyful cry she flew to his arms, and he did all he could to reassure her; so successfully, too, that presently she was her happy little self once more, playing with Bob on the quarterdeck, as if nothing had happened. Blissful childhood.

The condition of affairs, after the ship had penetrated into the regions of ice and snow, was not an enviable one, although there was now a rent in the dark cloud that hovered over the Sea Flower– a lull in the terrible storm.

Durdley was progressing favourably, and making so rapid a recovery that, in case he might cause more mischief, he was put in irons. But the other wounded men, probably owing to their weak condition, had died.

The five others were allowed to go on duty. Halcott refused to accept their offered promise to behave leal and true. What is a promise, even on oath, from such bloodthirsty villains as these?

“I do not wish either promise or apology,” he told them plainly. “Your conduct from this date will in some measure determine what your future punishment may be. Remember this, we do not trust you. The four good Englishmen, who fought for myself and mate, are all armed, and have orders to shoot you down without one moment’s grace if they observe a suspicious movement on your part, or hear one single mutinous word. There! go.”

The ship’s course was altered now, and all sail made to round Cape Horn.

No doubt the cold had been the means of eradicating the dreadful plague. Yet Halcott was a man whom no half-measures would satisfy.

There was plenty of clothing on board, so a new suit was served out to every seaman, the old being thrown overboard. Then the bedding and hammocks were scoured, and when dry fumigated. Sulphur was burned between decks, and hatches battened down for a whole day. Every portion of the woodwork was afterwards scrubbed, and even the masts were scraped. This work was given to the mutineers, and a cold job it was. The men sat each one in the bight of a rope, and were lowered up or down when they gave the signal.

Halcott was very far indeed from being vindictive, but long experience had taught him that mutinous intentions are seldom carried out if active occupation be found for body and mind.

“I breathe more freely now,” said the captain, as Tandy and he walked briskly up and down the quarterdeck.

“Heigho!” said Tandy, “we no doubt have sinned – we certainly have suffered. But,” he added, “I thank God, Halcott, from my inmost soul, first that you are spared, and secondly, that my little innocent child here and my brave boy Ransey Tansey are still alive and happy.”

“Amen! And now, Tandy, we’ve got to pray for fine weather. We are rather underhanded – those wretched Finns may break out again at any moment. They will, too, if not carefully watched.”

“You have a kinder heart than I have, Halcott, else you’d have made that scoundrel Durdley walk the plank, and hanged the rest at the yardarm, one by one.”

“The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him,” said Halcott, laughing.

“But will you care to land on the island we are in search of, with these fellows?” asked Tandy. “Mind,” he added, before Halcott could answer, “I take no small blame to myself for having engaged such scoundrels. Want of time was no excuse for me. Better to have sacrificed a month than sail as shipmates with such demons as these.”

“Keep your mind easy, my dear friend; I’ll get rid of them, by hook or by crook, before we reach our island.”

“It relieves me to hear you say so, but indeed, Halcott, ’twixt hook and crook, if I had my way, I should choose the crook. I’d give the beggars a bag of biscuit and a barrel of pork, and maroon them on the first desert island we come in sight of.”

I do not know that Halcott paid much attention to the latter part of Tandy’s speech. He was at this moment looking uneasily at a bank of dark, rock-like clouds that was rising slowly up to the north and east.

“Have you noticed the glass lately, Tandy?” he said quietly.

“I’ll jump down and see it now.”

“Why,” he said, on returning, “it is going tumbling down. I’ll shorten sail at once. We’re going to have it out of that quarter.”

There was little time to lose, for the wind was already blowing over the cold, dark sea in little uncertain puffs and squalls. Between each there was a lull; yet each, when it did come, lasted longer and blew stronger than those that had preceded it.

The barque was snug at last. Very little sail indeed was left on her; only just enough to steer by and a bit over, lest a sail or two should be carried away.

Of the four trustworthy men, one was Chips the carpenter, the other old Canvas the sailmaker. The latter kept a watch, the former had been placed in Tandy’s.

It was hard times now with all. Watch and watch is bad enough in temperate zones, but here, with the temperature far below freezing-point, and dropping lower and lower every hour, with darkness and storm coming down upon them, and the dangers of the ice to be encountered, it was doubly, trebly hard.

It takes a deal to damp the courage of a true British sailor, however, and strange as it may seem, that very courage seems to rise to the occasion, be that occasion what it may. But now, to quote the wondrous words of Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner – ”

 
… “The storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong;
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
 
 
“With sloping masts and dipping prow.
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head.
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward ay we fled.
 
 
“And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
 
 
“And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
 

* * * * *

 
“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!”
 

Yes, the good barque Sea Flower was driven far, far to the southward, far, far from her course; but happily, before they reached the icy barrier, the wind had gone down, so that the terrible noises in the main pack which the poet so graphically describes had few terrors for them.

The wind fell, and went veering round, till it blew fair from the east. A very gentle wind, however, and hardly did the barque make five knots an hour on her backward track.

Others might be impatient, but there was no such thing as impatience about Nelda, and little about Ransey Tansey either. Everything they saw or passed was as fresh and new to them as if they were sailing through a sea of enchantment.

The cold affected neither. They were dressed to withstand it. The keen, frosty air was bracing rather than otherwise, and warm blood circulated more quickly through every vein as they trod the decks together. How strange, how weird-like at times were the snow-clad icebergs they often saw, their sides glittering and gleaming in the sunshine with every colour of the rainbow, and how black was the sea that lay between!

The smaller pieces through which the ship had often to steer were of every shape and size, all white, and some of them acting as rafts for seals asleep thereon – seals that were drifting, drifting away they knew not, cared not whither.

Sometimes a great sea-elephant would raise his noble head and gaze curiously at the passing barque, then dive and be seen no more. Shoals of whales of a small species afforded our little seafarers great delight to watch. But these went slowly on their way, dipping and ploughing, and looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. The porpoises were still more interesting, for they seemed to live but to romp and play and chase each other, sometimes jumping right out of the water, so that it is no wonder Nelda imagined they were playing at leap-frog. Nelda, when told that these were schools of porpoises, said, —

“Oh, well, and school is just let out, I suppose; no wonder they are happy. And the big whales are their mothers! They are not happy because they are all going to church, quiet and ’spectable like.”

The myriads of birds seen everywhere it would be impossible here to describe. Suffice it to say that they afforded Nelda great delight.

Bob was as merry as ever; but when one day the ’Ral walked solemnly aft wearing a pair of canvas stockings right up as far as his thighs, both Tandy and Halcott joined with the youngsters in a roar of hearty laughter. There was no more dance in that droll bird, and wouldn’t be for many a long day. “A sail in sight, sah! A steamer, sah!” It was little Fritz who reported it from the mast-head one morning, some time after the Sea Flower had regained her course, had doubled the Cape, and was steering north-west by west.

The stranger lay to on observing a flag of distress hoisted, and soon a boat was seen coming rapidly on towards the Sea Flower.

The steamer was the Dun Avon, homeward-bound from San Francisco, with passengers and cargo.

The captain himself boarded her with one of his men, and to him was related the whole sad story as we know it. “We have a clean bill of health now though,” added Halcott; “but we are short-handed – one man in irons, and five more that we cannot trust.”

“Well,” said the steamer captain, “I cannot relieve you of your black hats, but I’ll tell you what I can do: I shall let you have four good hands if they’ll volunteer, and if you’ll pay them well. And I should advise you to set your mutineers on shore at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan, and let them take their chance. You’re not compelled to voyage with mutineers, and risk the safety of yourselves and your ship. Now write your letters home, for my time is rather short.”

The four new hands were four hearties, as hard as a mainstay, as brown as bricks, and with merry faces that did one’s heart good to behold.

Was it marooning, I wonder? Well, it doesn’t matter a great deal, but just ten days after this the mutineers were landed, bag and baggage, on the north cape of Desolation Island, not far from the route through the far-famed strait. With them were left provisions for six weeks, guns, ammunition, and tools.

I never heard what became of them. If they were picked up by some passing ship, it was more than they deserved.

“At last,” said Halcott, when the boat returned – “at last, friend Tandy, an incubus is lifted off my mind, and now let us make —

“All Sail for the Island of Gold.”

End of Book Two

Book Three – Chapter One.
“A Sight I shall Remember till my Dying Day.”

Captain Halcott sat on the skylight, and near him sat Tandy his mate, while between them – tacked down with pins to the painted canvas, so that the wind might not catch it – lay a chart of a portion of the South Pacific Ocean.

At one particular spot was a blue cross.

“I marked it myself,” said Halcott; “and here, on this piece of cardboard, is the island, which I’ve shown you before – every creek and bay, every river and hill, so far as I know them, distinctly depicted.”

“The exact longitude and latitude?” said Tandy.

“As near as I could make them, my friend.”

“And yet we don’t seem to be able to discover this island. Strange things happen in these seas, Halcott; islands shift and islands sink, but one so large as this could do neither. Come, Halcott, we’ll work out the reckoning again. It will be twelve o’clock in ten minutes.”

“Everything correct,” said Halcott, when they had finished, “as written down by me. Here we are on the very spot where the Island of Misfortune should be, and – the island is gone!”

There was a gentle breeze blowing, and the sky was clear, save here and there a few fleecy clouds lying low on a hazy horizon.

Nothing in sight! nor had there been for days and days; for the isle they were in search of lies far out of the track of outward or homeward-bound ships.

“Below there!”

It was a shout from one of the new hands, who was stationed at the fore-topgallant cross-trees.

“Hallo, Wilson!” cried Tandy running forward. “Here we are!”

“Something I can’t make out on the lee bow, sir.”

“Well, shall I come up and bring a bigger glass?”

“One minute, sir!”

“It’s a steamer, I believe,” he hailed now; “but I can’t just raise her hull, only just the long trail of smoke along the horizon.”

Tandy was beside the man in a few minutes’ time. “This will raise it,” he said, “if I can focus aright. Why!” he cried next minute, “that is no steamer, Tom Wilson, but the smoke from a volcanic mountain or hill.”

Down went Tandy quickly now.

“Had your island of gold a chimney to it?” he said, laughing. He could afford to laugh, for he felt convinced this was the island and none other. “There wasn’t a coal mine or a factory of any kind on it, was there? If not, we will soon be in sight of the land of gold. Volcanic, Halcott – volcanic!”

“Keep her away a point or two,” he said to the man at the wheel.

“There were hills on the Island of Misfortune, but no signs of a volcano.”

“Not then; but in this mystery of an ocean, Halcott, we know not what a day or an hour may bring forth.

“Let me see,” he continued, glancing at the cardboard map; “we are on the east side of the island, or we will be soon. Why, we ought soon to reach your Treachery Bay. Ominous name, though, Halcott; we must change it.”

Nearer and nearer to the land sailed the Sea Flower. The hills came in sight; then dark, wild cliffs o’ertopped with green, with a few waving palm-trees and a fringe of banana here and there; and all between as blue a sea as ever sun shone on.

“It is strangely like my island,” said Halcott; “but that hill, far to the west yonder, from which the smoke is rising, I cannot recognise.”

“It may not have been there before.”

“True,” said Halcott. But still he looked puzzled.

Then, after bearing round to the north side of the island, past the mouth of a dark gully, and past a rocky promontory, the land all at once began to recede. In other words, they had opened out the bay.

“But all the land in yonder used to be burned forest, Tandy.”

Tandy quietly handed him the glass.

The forest he now looked upon was not composed of living trees, but of skeletons, their weird shapes now covered entirely by a wealth of trailing parasites and flowery climbing plants.

“I am satisfied now, and I think we may drop nearer shore, and let go the anchor.”

In an hour’s time the Sea Flower lay within two hundred yards of the beach.

This position was by no means a safe one were a heavy storm to blow from either the north or the west. There would be nothing for it then but to get up anchor and put out to sea, or probably lie to under the shelter of rocks and cliffs to the southward of the island.

The bay itself was a somewhat curious one. The dark blue which was its colour showed that it was deep, and the depth continued till within seventy yards of the shore, when it rapidly shoaled, ending in a snow-white semicircle of coral sands. Then at the head of the bay, only on the east side, stretching seawards to that bold promontory, was a line of high, black, beetling cliffs, the home of those wheeling sea-birds. These cliffs were of solid rock of an igneous formation chiefly, but marked here and there with veins of what appeared to be quartz. They were, moreover, indented with many a cave: some of these, it was found out afterwards, were floored with stalagmites, while huge icicle-like stalactites depended from their roofs.

Rising to the height of at least eight hundred feet above these cliffs was one solitary conical hill, green-wooded almost to its summit.

The western side of the bay, and, indeed, all this end of the island, was low, and fringed with green to the water’s edge; but southwards, if one turned his eye, a range of high hills was to be seen, adding materially to the beauty of the landscape.

The whole island – which was probably not more than sixteen miles in length, by from eight to nine in width – was divided by the river mentioned in Captain Halcott’s narrative into highlands and lowlands.

The day was far advanced when the Sea Flower dropped anchor in this lovely bay, and it was determined therefore not to attempt a landing that night. Halcott considered it rather an ominous sign that no savages were visible, and that not a single outrigger boat was drawn up on the beach.

Experience teaches fools, and it teaches savages also. Just a little inland from the head of the bay the cover was very dense indeed; and though, even with the aid of their glasses, neither Halcott nor Tandy could discover a sign of human life, still, for all they could tell to the contrary, that green entanglement of bush might be peopled by wild men who knew the Sea Flower all too well, and would not dare to venture forth.

The wind went down with the sun, and for a time scarce a sound was to be heard. The stars were very bright, and seemed very near, the Southern Cross sparkling like a diamond pendant in the sky.

By-and-by a yellow glare shone above the shoulder of the adjacent hill, and a great round moon uprose and sailed up the firmament as clear and bright as a pearl.

It was just after this that strange noises began to be heard coming from the woods apparently. They were intermittent, however. There would be a chorus of plaintive cries and shrieks, dying away into a low, murmuring moan, which caused Nelda, who was on deck, to shiver with fear and cling close to her brother’s arm.

“What on earth can it be?” said Tandy. “Can the place be haunted?”

“Haunted by birds of prey, doubtless. These are not the cries that savages utter, even during an orgie. But, strangely enough – whatever your experience may be, Tandy – I have seldom found birds of prey on the inhabited islands of the South Pacific.”

“Nor I,” said Tandy. “Look yonder!” he added, pointing to a balloon-shaped cloud of smoke that hovered over a distant hill-top, lit up every now and then by just such gleams of light as one sees at night penetrating the smoke from some village blacksmith’s forge. But yonder was Vulcan’s forge, and Jupiter was his chief employer.

“Yes, Tandy, that is the volcano. But I can assure you there was no such fire-mountain, as savages say, when I was here last.”

“To-morrow,” said the mate, “will, I trust, make every thing more plain to us.”

“To-morrow? Yes, I trust so, too,” said Halcott, musingly. “Shall we go below and talk a little?”

“I confess, my friend,” Halcott continued, after he had lit his pipe and smoked some time in silence – “I confess, Tandy, that I don’t quite like the look of that hill. Have you ever experienced the effects of a volcanic eruption in any of these islands?”

“I have not had that pleasure, if pleasure it be,” replied the mate.

“Pleasure, Tandy! I do not know of anything more hideous, more awful, in this world.

“When I say ‘any of these islands,’ I refer to any one of the whole vast colony of them that stud the South Pacific, and hundreds of these have never yet been visited by white men.

“Years ago,” he continued, “I was first mate of the Sky-Raker, as bonnie a brig as you could have clapped eyes upon. It afterwards foundered with all hands in a gale off the coast of Australia. When I trod her decks, second in command, I was a bold young fellow of twenty, or thereabouts; and I may tell you at once we were engaged in the Queensland black labour trade. And black, indeed, and bloody, too, it might often be called.

“We used to go cruising to the nor’ard and east, visiting islands here and islands there, to engage hands for working in the far interior. We arranged to pay every man well who would volunteer to go with us, and to land them again back home on their own islands, if they did wish to return.

“On these expeditions we invariably employed ‘call-crows.’”

“What may a ‘call-crow’ be, Halcott?”

“Well, you know what gamblers mean on shore by a ‘call-bird’ or ‘decoy-duck.’ Your ‘call-crow’ is the same, only he is a black who has lived and laboured in Queensland, who can talk ‘island,’ who can spin a good yarn in an off-hand way, and tell as many lies as a recruiting-sergeant.

“These are the lures.

“No matter how unfriendly the blackamoors among whom we may land may be, our ‘call-rooks’ nearly always make peace. Then bartering begins, and after a few days we get volunteers enough.”

“But they do attack you at times, these natives?”

“That’s so, Tandy; and I believe I was a braver man in those days than I am now, else I’d hardly have cared to make myself a target for poisoned arrows, or poisoned spears, so coolly as I used to do then.”

Nelda, who had come quietly down the companion-way with her brother, seated herself as closely to Captain Halcott as she could. She dearly loved a story, especially one of thrilling adventure.

“Go on, cap’n,” she said, eagerly. “Never mind me. ‘Poisoned spears,’ – that is the prompt-word.”

“These black fellows were not of great height, Tandy,” resumed Halcott.

“Savages,” said Nelda. “Please say savages.”

“Well, dear, savages I suppose I must call them. They were almost naked, and many of the elder warriors were tattooed on cheeks, chest, and arms. All had bushy heads of hair, and were armed with bows and arrows, spears and clubs, and tomahawks.