n a low voice to Lucia, who then spoke to me, and
said nervously--

"Please do not think I am a coward, Mr. Sherry. But do you not think it
is better for us to get away?"

"No, I don't," I answered so rudely that her face flushed scarlet,
and her eyes filled with tears; "I shall stay here if fifty of King
Apinoka's boats were in sight." And as I spoke I felt a strange,
unreasoning fury against the approaching boat.

I picked up an Evans rifle--we had two on board--filled the magazine,
handed it to Niabon, told her to lay it down in the little cabin, out
of sight, with the other arms--three Snider carbines, my breechloading
shotgun, and three of those rotten pin-fire French service
revolvers--the Lefaucheux. My own revolver was a Deane and Adams, and
could be depended upon--the Lefaucheux could not, for the cartridges
were so old that twenty-five per cent, of them would miss fire. Years
before, at a ship chandler's shop in Singapore, I had bought twenty
of these revolvers, with ten thousand cartridges, for a trifling sum,
intending to sell them to the natives of the Admiralty Islands, who have
a great craze for "little many-shooting guns," as they call repeaters;
but the cartridges were so defective that I was ashamed to palm them
off as an effective weapon, and had given all but three away to various
traders as curiosities to hang upon the walls of their houses.

As the boat drew near I saw that she was steered by a white man, who
sailed her beautifully. He was dressed in a suit of dirty pyjamas, and
presently, as the wind lifted the rim of the wide Panama hat he was
wearing, I caught a glimpse of his features and recognised him--Florence
Tully, one of the greatest blackguards in the Pacific, and whom I had
last seen at Ponape, in the Carolines. As he saw me looking at him, he
took off his hat and waved it.

"That is 'Florry' Tully, Jim," said Lucia. "I have often seen him. He
is the man who shot his wife--a native girl--at Yap, in the Carolines,
because she told the captain of a Spanish gunboat that he had been
selling arms to the natives."

"I know the fellow too," I said; "the little scoundrel used to be
boatswain of Bully Hayes's brig, the _Leonora_. Hayes kicked him ashore
at Jakoits Harbour, on Ponape, for stealing a cask of rum from the
_Leonora_, and selling it to the crew of an American whaler."

CHAPTER XI

Five minutes later the boat, which was crowded with natives, went about
like a top, and