that the only place
among the southern islands where a ship can put in and get what she wants
in comfort, is where the gospel has been sent to. There are hundreds o'
islands, at this blessed moment, where you might as well jump straight
into a shark's maw as land without a band o' thirty comrades armed to the
teeth to back you."

"Ay," said a man with a deep scar over his right eye, "Dick's new to the
work. But if the captain takes us for a cargo o' sandal-wood to the
Feejees he'll get a taste o' these black gentry in their native
condition. For my part I don't know, an' I don't care, what the gospel
does to them; but I know that when any o' the islands chance to get it,
trade goes all smooth an' easy; but where they ha'nt got it, Beelzebub
himself could hardly desire better company."

"Well, you ought to be a good judge," cried another, laughing, "for
you've never kept any company but the worst all your life!"

"Ralph Rover!" shouted a voice down the hatchway. "Captain wants you,
aft."

Springing up the ladder I hastened to the cabin, pondering as I went the
strange testimony borne by these men to the effect of the gospel on
savage natures;--testimony which, as it was perfectly disinterested, I
had no doubt whatever was strictly true.

On coming again on deck I found Bloody Bill at the helm, and as we were
alone together I tried to draw him into conversation. After repeating to
him the conversation in the forecastle about the missionaries, I said,--

"Tell me, Bill, is this schooner really a trader in sandal-wood?"

"Yes, Ralph, she is; but she's just as really a pirate. The black flag
you saw flying at the peak was no deception."

"Then how can you say she's a trader?" asked I.

"Why, as to that, she trades when she can't take by force, but she takes
by force, when she can, in preference. Ralph," he added, lowering his
voice, "if you had seen the bloody deeds that I have witnessed done on
these decks you would not need to ask if we were pirates. But you'll
find it out soon enough. As for the missionaries, the captain favours
them because they are useful to him. The South-Sea islanders are such
incarnate fiends that they are the better of being tamed, and the
missionaries are the only men who can do it."

Our track after this lay through several clusters of small islets, among
which we were becalmed more than once. During this part of our voyage
the watch on deck and the look-out at the mast-head