more than twenty miles
from Pikirami. About midnight, therefore, the sail was lowered, and the
boat allowed to drift, as otherwise she might have run past the island
in the darkness. Two of the natives were placed on the look-out for
indications of the land, and the rest of the people, except Harvey, laid
down and slept, for after one or two rain squalls early in the evening
the night had turned out fine and dry.

Poor Morrison's body had been covered up and placed under the for'ard
thwarts; amidships lay Atkins, who had fallen asleep with his pipe in
his mouth and his head pillowed on the naked chest of one of the native
sailors; aft, in the stern sheets, Tessa and Maoni slept with their arms
around each other, Tessa's pale cheek lying upon the soft, rounded bosom
of the native girl. Still further aft, on the whale-back, Harvey sat,
cross-legged, contentedly smoking a stumpy clay pipe lent to him by
Huka, and looking, now at the glorious, myriad-starred sky above, and
now at the beautiful face just beneath him, and musing upon the events
of the past few days. Then as his eye rested for a moment or two on the
stiffened form of the dead engineer, his face hardened, and he thought
of Chard and the captain. Where were they now? Making for Ponape,
no doubt, with all possible speed, so that they might escape in some
passing whale-ship or vessel bound China-wards. But where could they
go? What civilised country would afford protection to such fiendish
and cruel murderers? Neither of them dare dream of ever putting foot on
Australian soil again if a single one of the survivors of the _Motutapu_
reached there before them. Then he thought of Hendry's wife and three
fair daughters.

"Poor things," he muttered, "the story of their father's crime will
break their hearts, and make life desolate to them. Better for them if
the Almighty, in His mercy, took them before this frightful tale is told
to wreck their lives."

An hour passed, and then Roka, who was one of the look-outs, came aft,
stepping softly so as not to awaken the sleepers.

"What is it, Roka?"

"Listen," whispered the native, "dost hear the call of the _kanapu_?
There be many of them about us in the air; so this land of Pikirami must
be near."

Harvey nodded and listened, and though his ear was not so quick as that
of the sailor, he soon caught the low, hoarse notes of the _kanapu_,
a large bird of the booby species, which among the islands of the
North-West Pac