ht the insubordinate ones to their
bearings, a message of unconditional surrender being brought from them
to me within thirty-six hours of their confinement, promising good
behaviour in the future if I would release them and permit them to
return to duty.

Naturally I was more than willing to accept the olive branch thus held
out, for the absence from duty of four able seamen out of our little
company left the ship perilously undermanned, and would have involved us
in serious difficulties, might indeed have imperilled the safety of the
ship, had we fallen in with bad weather. Fortunately, however, the
weather, for the first week after our departure from the estuary, proved
to be almost too fine for our liking, consisting as it did of light,
baffling contrary airs, interspersed with spells of calm; thus the
temporary confinement below of the four foreigners proved of no
disadvantage to us, although I was heartily glad to have them back on
duty again. Nevertheless it soon became apparent that their reformation
was, like beauty, only skin-deep, and that at heart they were as ready
as ever to give trouble.

The exceptionally fine weather, to which I have just referred, continued
for nearly a month, during which, with much pulling and hauling at
tacks, sheets, and braces, we contrived to jockey the brigantine fairly
into the Pacific, where I intended to hunt up a cargo of copra,
sandalwood, and shell on the way home.

But such an extraordinarily long spell of fine weather as we had been
experiencing was bound to break, sooner or later, and the break came
during the afternoon of our twenty-seventh day out. The barometer,
which for nearly three weeks had been standing well above thirty inches,
gave us the first warning of the coming change by an ominously rapid
decline of the mercury, which was quickly succeeded by a subtle veiling
of the sky, the clear, rich blue of which gradually changed to a uniform
tint of dirty white, in the midst of which the sun hung a mere shapeless
blotch. The light breeze that during the earlier part of the day had
been fanning us along at a scant three knots, died away, leaving the
surface of the sea oil-smooth and colourless, while the stagnant air
grew so hot that we literally felt the heat of it in our nostrils with
every breath we drew. The _quality_ of the air seemed to change, too,
rendering it difficult to breathe, so that we found ourselves gasping
for breath at frequent intervals,