he awful convict system.

From the simple, loafing beachcomber stage of life to that of a leader
of the natives in their tribal wars was a simple but natural transition,
and Jim Martin, son of a convict father and mother whose forbears were
of the scum of Liverpool, and knew the precincts of a prison better than
the open air, followed the path ordained for him by Fate.

The man's reckless courage won him undoubted respect from his
associates; the head chief of the village alone possessed a greater
influence. A house was built for him, and a wife and land given him; and
within a year of his arrival on the island he signalised himself by a
desperate attempt to cut-off a barque bound from Hobart to China as
she lay becalmed off the island. The attempt failed, and many of his
followers lost their lives. A few months later, however, he was more
successful with a Fijian trading cutter, which, anchoring off the
village, was carried during the night, plundered of her cargo of trade
goods (much of which was firearms), and then burnt. This established his
reputation.

Five years passed. But few vessels touched at the island now, for it had
a bad name, and those which did call were well armed and able to beat
off an attack. Then one day, two years before the opening of this story,
a trading schooner called off the village, and Martin, now more a savage
native than a white man, was tempted by her defenceless condition, and
by the money which the captain carried for trading purposes, to capture
her, with the aid of the wild, savage people among whom he had cast
his lot. Of what use the money would be to him he knew not. He was an
outcast from civilisation, he was quickly forgetting his mother tongue;
but his criminal instincts, and his desire to be a "big man" with the
savages among whom he had lived for so long, led him to perpetrate this
one particular crime. In the dead of night he led a party of natives
on board the schooner, and massacred every one of her crew, save one
Fijian, who, jumping overboard, swam to the shore, and was spared. A few
months later this man escaped to a passing whaler, and the story of the
massacre of the captain and crew of the _Fedora_ was made known to
the commodore of the Australian station, who despatched a gunboat "to
apprehend the murderers and bring them to Sydney for trial." Failing the
apprehension of the murderers, the commander was instructed "to burn
the village, and inflict such other puni