y don't like white men _so well_ as black; but if they was hungry they
wouldn't be particular. Anyhow, I'm sure they would kill you. You see,
Ralph, I've been a good while in them parts, and I've visited the
different groups of islands oftentimes as a trader. And thorough goin'
blackguards some o' them traders are. No better than pirates, I can tell
you. One captain that I sailed with was not a chip better than the one
we're with now. He was tradin' with a friendly chief one day, aboard his
vessel. The chief had swam off to us with the things for trade tied a-
top of his head, for them chaps are like otters in the water. Well, the
chief was hard on the captain, and would not part with some o' his
things. When their bargainin' was over they shook hands, and the chief
jumped over board to swim ashore; but before he got forty yards from the
ship the captain seized a musket and shot him dead. He then hove up
anchor and put to sea, and as we sailed along shore, he dropped six black-
fellows with his rifle, remarkin' that 'that would spoil the trade for
the next comers.' But, as I was sayin', I'm up to the ways o' these
fellows. One o' the laws o' the country is, that every shipwrecked
person who happens to be cast ashore, be he dead or alive, is doomed to
be roasted and eaten. There was a small tradin' schooner wrecked off one
of these islands when we were lyin' there in harbour during a storm. The
crew was lost, all but three men, who swam ashore. The moment they
landed they were seized by the natives and carried up into the woods. We
knew pretty well what their fate would be, but we could not help them,
for our crew was small, and if we had gone ashore they would likely have
killed us all. We never saw the three men again; but we heard frightful
yelling, and dancing, and merry-making that night; and one of the
natives, who came aboard to trade with us next day, told us that the
_long pigs_, as he called the men, had been roasted and eaten, and their
bones were to be converted into sail needles. He also said that white
men were bad to eat, and that most o' the people on shore were sick."

I was very much shocked and cast down in my mind at this terrible account
of the natives, and asked Bill what he would advise me to do. Looking
round the deck to make sure that we were not overheard, he lowered his
voice and said, "There are two or three ways that we might escape, Ralph,
but none o' them's easy. If the ca