may he try to leave. To-night you and I sleep over the top of the Rock,
and Tehaa, who shoots well, will sleep with us if he can dare the Rock."

Tehaa, alone among the Raiateans, was cragsman enough to venture the
perilous way, and dawn found him in a rock-barricaded nook, a hundred
yards to the right of Grief and Mauriri.

The first warning was the firing of rifles from the peninsula, where
Brown and his two Raiateans signalled the retreat and followed the
besiegers through the jungle to the beach. From the eyrie on the face
of the rock Grief could see nothing for another hour, when the _Rattler_
appeared, making for the passage. As before, the captive Fuatino men
towed in the whaleboat. Mauriri, under direction of Grief, called down
instructions to them as they passed slowly beneath. By Grief's side
lay several bundles of dynamite sticks, well-lashed together and with
extremely short fuses.

The deck of the _Rattler_ was populous. For'ard, rifle in hand, among
the Raiatean sailors, stood a desperado whom Mauriri announced was
Raoul's brother. Aft, by the helmsman, stood another. Attached to him,
tied waist to waist, with slack, was Mataara, the old Queen. On the
other side of the helmsman, his arm in a sling, was Captain Glass.
Amidships, as before, was Raoul, and with him, lashed waist to waist,
was Naumoo.

"Good morning, Mister David Grief," Raoul called up.

"And yet I warned you that only in double irons would you leave the
island," Grief murmured down with a sad inflection.

"You can't kill all your people I have on board," was the answer.

The schooner, moving slowly, jerk by jerk, as the men pulled in the
whaleboat, was almost directly beneath. The rowers, without ceasing,
slacked on their oars, and were immediately threatened with the rifle of
the man who stood for'ard.

"Throw, Big Brother!" Naumoo called up in the Fuatino tongue. "I am
filled with sorrow and am willed to die. His knife is ready with which
to cut the rope, but I shall hold him tight. Be not afraid, Big Brother.
Throw, and throw straight, and good-bye."

Grief hesitated, then lowered the fire-stick which he had been blowing
bright.

"Throw!" the Goat Man urged.

Still Grief hesitated.

"If they get to sea, Big Brother, Naumoo dies just the same. And there
are all the others. What is her life against the many?"

"If you drop any dynamite, or fire a single shot, we'll kill all on
board," Raoul cried up to them. "I've got you,