ith muskets,
and then, when one man was hit by a bullet and died quickly, the white
man cursed those on the ship for fools, and turned the boats shoreward
again, saying that those on board could perish before he would try to
help them again. By sunset three boats, filled with men, had left the
ship and sailed to the south. In the morning the white man (whom I knew
from their description of him to be a well-known and decent South Sea
trader named Harry Gardiner) boarded the ship and began to remove all
that was of value on shore. Her hold was filled with all sorts of goods
in barrels and cases, and when "Puli Ese" came, three months later, he
was well pleased, not only for the seven hundred barrels of oil, but
with the many things that had been gotten from the wrecked ship.

We promised our new friends to come up to their village--where they and
about twenty of their fellow islanders lived with the remainder of Bully
Hayes's Line Island contingent--on the following day, and sent them away
with a few trifling presents. As they said they could walk back, and I
wanted to have a look at the wreck, they cheerfully agreed to let their
canoe remain with us.

About four in the afternoon, as the heat of the sun began to relax, I
determined to set out in the canoe. Tematau and Tepi had gone across to
the weather side of the island with my gun to shoot plover and frigate
birds, of which latter, so the natives had told us, there were great
numbers to be found on the high trees to windward. Lucia and Niabon were
resting in the shade, but the latter, when she saw me pushing the canoe
into the water, asked me to let her come also.

"Yes, of course; and you too, Lucia. Won't you come as well?" I said.

"No, Jim. I feel very lazy, and I'm always so afraid of canoes," she
said with a smile, "and do be careful and not be capsized; look at all
those horrid sharks swimming about--I can see nearly twenty of them from
where I am sitting."

Both Niabon and I laughed at her fears--the sharks were not man-eaters,
as we knew by their black-tipped fins, though the species were dangerous
when bad weather made the fish on which they preyed scarce; then they
became vicious and daring enough, and would at times actually tear the
oars out of the hands of a boat's crew. However, Lucia would not come,
saying she would await the return of the men and pluck the plover which
they were sure to bring back with them.

"Very well, Lucia," I said, "we'll le