oost like a
leedle bid of hell." It circled them about, hissed in the water, and
finally struck their mast repeatedly, so that the wise captain took
it down. The entire heavens were a mass of coruscating electricity,
and they could feel the air alive with it. They were shocked by
the very atmosphere, said Steve, and feared for their lives every
moment. The sea piled up, the wind blew a gale, and death was close
at hand. They wished they had not left Easter Island, and envied
those who had remained there.

But they rode it out, with their pile of blankets a-trail, and with
helm and oars alert to keep the boat afloat.

The gale amended after several days, and on the sixteenth day
from their departure they reached Mangareva. That island is in the
Gambier group, and a number of Europeans live there. The castaways
were received generously, and were informed that a schooner was
expected in a fortnight, which might carry them to some port on
their way home. But the old man said they must push on. He had to
report to his owners the loss of the El Dorado; he had to see his
family. They had come twenty-six hundred miles since deserting the
schooner, and the thousand miles more to Tahiti was not a serious
undertaking. He persuaded Steve and Alex to his manner of thinking,
and with the boat stocked with provisions they took the wave again,
after a couple of days at Mangareva.

Now the bad weather was over. The sea was comparatively smooth, and
the breeze favorable. But fate still had frowns for them, as if to
keep them in terror. Sharks and swordfish, as though resenting the
intrusion of their tiny craft in waters where boats were seldom seen,
attacked them furiously. Five times a giant shark launched himself
at their boat, head on, and drove them frantic with his menace of
sinking them. They were so filled with this dread that they fastened
a marlinespike in the spar, and despite probability of provoking the
shark to more desperate onslaughts, maneuvered so that they were able
to kill him with a blow.

The next day a swordfish of alarming size played about them,
approaching and retreating, eying them and acting in such a manner
that they felt sure he was challenging the boat as a strange fish
whose might he disputed. One thrust of his bony weapon, and they
might be robbed of their chance for life. They shouted and banged on
the gunwales, and escaped.

Steve hurried through this part of his diary. So near to safety then,
he