“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.