Chapter III

“We hadn’t been lying there cursing ourselves more than half an hour when, the sun having got over the reef, a chap comes in, catches Sellers by the heels and drags him out just as if he’d been a dead carcase.

“‘Good-bye, boys,’ cries Sellers, as he’s dragged along the ground, and good-bye it was, for a few minutes after we heard him scream.

“He went on screaming for fifteen minutes, maybe more, and I was fifteen years older when he let off and the silence came up again with nothing but the sound of the reef and the jabbering of those cursed Kanakas.

“‘If I had a knife I’d stick it into myself,’ says Heffernan. ‘Lord! what have they been doing to him?’

“I couldn’t answer, more than just by spitting, and there we lay waiting our turn and watching the sun striking fuller on the lagoon through the door space.

“I could see the schooner lying there at anchor, but not a soul could I see on board her; the crew were either down below or had been murdered. As I was looking at her I heard Heffernan give a grunt, then I saw that he was sitting up and that his hands were free. He’d been working away, saying nothing, and he’d managed to get the cocoanut fibre rope free of his wrists; a minute after, he’d got his feet loose, and then he turned to me and it didn’t take more than five minutes to make me a free man like himself.

“That being done we set to work on the back wall of the shack, pulling aside the wattles and tearing out the grass binding till we were free at last and out into the thick growth, which was mostly mammee apple and cassia mixed up with pandanus and cocoanut trees.

“What made us bother to break free from the shack, Lord only knows. There was no use getting free, seeing we were on an atoll and would be hunted down like rats once Tawela and her crowd got wind that we were loose; anyhow, we’d worked like niggers and just as if our lives had depended on it, and now in the bushes we were crawling along on our bellies to put as big a distance as we could between ourselves and that crowd—as if it mattered!

“We worked along, taking the line of bushes towards the reef opening, and all the time to the left of us we could hear the breaking of the swell on the outer beach, whilst to the right of us we could see bits of the lagoon now and then through the branches.

“The strangest feeling I’ve ever felt was being stuck like that between the free sea and that locked-in lagoon.

“Prison on one side, so to say, and an open road on the other.

“Well, there we were, the sun getting higher in the sky, and the Kanakas sure to be beating the bushes after us as soon as they found we’d broke loose, but we didn’t say a word on the matter, only went on crawling till we’d reached the last of the trees and thick stuff. From there the coral ran naked to the break in the reef.

“We hadn’t more than reached so far when the hellnation of a hullabaloo broke out behind us, and we thought they’d found we’d escaped, but that wasn’t so, as we discovered in a minute, for chancing to look towards the opening, we saw the top canvas of a schooner away beyond the northernmost pierhead. We reckoned she was two or three mile off, and, crawling along the coral on our bellies till we’d got a clear view of the sea, there she was, right enough, making for the break, the light wind spilling and filling her canvas. She hadn’t much more than steerage way.

“Then we looked back. We couldn’t see the village because of the trees, but we could see the _Mary Waters_ lying there at anchor out in the lagoon, and canoes all about her and chaps swarming on board of her.

“‘See that,’ said Heffernan, ‘all that hullabaloo wasn’t about us. I doubt if they’ve found we’ve escaped yet.’

“‘What are they doing round the schooner?’ says I.

“‘Lord knows,’ says he, ‘but we’ll soon see.’

“We did. Those devils were used to the game of sinking ships and slaughtering sailor men; they’d most likely got all the trade goods they wanted off the schooner by this, and now we saw them passing a tow rope from the bow to one of the canoes and we heard the noise of the winch picking up the anchor chain.

“‘They’re not going to sink her at her moorings,’ said Heffernan, ‘too shallow. Look, they’re towing her to a deeper part of the lagoon.’

“That was so, and as we watched we saw she was getting deeper in the water even as she was towed; they must have begun the job of sinking her the minute the schooner was sighted, forgetting like fools that the chaps coming up would have been sure to sight her spars, or maybe risking even that rather than have the newcomers see the bloody work that had been done on deck.

“You can sink a ship quicker than clean her sometimes. Well, there it was, and suddenly the old _Mary Waters_ gave a dive, and dipped her bowsprit under. I saw her shiver like a dog, and then the stern went, the main hatch cover blowing off from air pressure as soon as the decks were awash. After that she went like a stone till there was nothing left of her but a case or two floating about and a bit of grating.

“Then we crawled back among the trees and held a council of war, as you might say, but we couldn’t fix on anything to do but lay still and wait our chances. We reckoned the fellows in the schooner were sure to come ashore armed, and we’d have time to warn them before they were set on. Our worst chance was that the Kanakas might find us before the schooner was in or the chaps come ashore, but there was no use bothering about that, and there we lay waiting and listening till the fore canvas of the schooner showed at the break, and in she came riding the full flood, every sail drawing to the wind that was freshening up.

“When I saw her full view I nearly leapt out of my skin. She was the _Greyhound_. Buck, as I found afterwards, had put into Papeete, heard of our expedition and me being with it, and, the old whaling chap offering to give him our port of destination for two bottles of whisky, closed on the offer and lit after us. He was anxious to pick up with me and make friends, and maybe he was anxious to have a hand in the coral business as well, no knowing; anyhow, here he was bulling along across the lagoon and evidently making to drop his anchor close to the village.

“‘Come on,’ I says to Heffernan, ‘follow me.’ We made back through the thick stuff, taking the track we’d come by, and we hadn’t more’n reached the sight of Tawela’s house through the trees when we heard the anchor chain go.

“I reckon the damn fool Kanakas had been so busy with the sinking of the schooner and then the _Greyhound_ coming in, that they’d forgot to look to see if we were still safely tied up. Anyhow, the whole crowd were down on the beach to meet the boat that was coming off, and making sure of that, I took a peep into Tawela’s house to see if there was any clubs or spears handy for arming ourselves, and there I see Tawela’s son hiding a long knife under some matting. We went in; he was too scared to yell, and shoving him in a corner, we stripped up the matting, and there were our revolvers, a couple of knives and half a dozen short stabbing spears, all bloody with the blood of Sellers.

“We kicked him out before us, and, with the guns in our hands, down we marched to the beach.