her. She rose,
somewhat reluctantly, and followed the woman, whose face was concealed
in a kerchief of native cloth. The two then went cautiously to another
hat, where two of the wives of the murdered Otaheitans awaited them, the
one with a long knife, the other with an axe in her hand.

They whispered together for a few seconds. As they did so there came a
tremendous crash of thunder, followed by a flash which revealed the dark
heads and glistening eyeballs drawn together in a group.

"We had better not try to-night," said one voice, timidly.

"Faint heart, you may stay behind," replied another voice, firmly.
"Come, let us not delay. They were cruel; we will be cruel too."

They all crouched down, and seemed to melt into the dark earth. When
the next lightning-flash rent the heavens they were gone.

Lying in his bunk, opposite the door of his house, that night, John
Adams lay half asleep and half-conscious of the storm outside. As he
lay with closed eyes there came a glaring flash of light. It revealed
in the open doorway several pallid faces and glistening eyeballs.

"A strange dream," thought Adams; "stranger still to dream of dreaming."

The thunder-clap that followed was mingled with a crash, a burst of
smoke, and a shriek that caused Adams to leap from his couch as a bullet
whistled past his ear. In the succeeding lightning-flash he beheld a
woman near him with an uplifted axe, another with a gleaming knife, and
Edward Young, who slept in his house that night, in the act of leaping
upon her.

Adams was prompt to act on all occasions. He caught the uplifted axe,
and wrenching it from her grasp, thrust the woman out of the door.

"There," he said, quietly, "go thy way, lass. I don't care to know
which of 'ee's done it. Let the other one go too, Mr Young. It's not
worth while making a work about it."

The midshipman obeyed, and going to a shelf in a corner, took down a
torch made of small nuts strung on a palm-spine, struck a light, and
kindled it.

"Poor things," he said, "I'm sorry for them. They've had hard times
here."

"They won't try it again," remarked Adams, as he closed the door, and
quietly turned again into his sleeping-bunk.

But John Adams was wrong. Foiled though they were on this occasion, and
glad though some of them must have been at their failure, there were one
or two who could not rest, and who afterwards made another attempt on
the lives of the men. This also failed