ers stood away under the lee of New Ireland, stickin' in to the
land, and tryin' to bring to for shelter, but they were a hundred miles
away from me, down the coast, before they could bring-to and anchor,
for the blow had settled into a hurricane, and raised such a fearful sea
that they had to heave-to for twenty-four hours. It was two weeks before
we met again, after they had had to tow and 'sweep' back to my little
island, against a dead calm and a strong current, gettin' a whiff of a
land breeze at night now an' agin', which let 'em use their canvas. As
for the cutter, she ran before it for New Britain, and brought up at
Matupi in Blanche Bay, two hundred miles away, where old Horn knew
there was a white settlement of Germans--his own kidney. He was a
white-livered old swine, but a good sailor-man--as far as any man who
says 'Ja' for 'Yes' goes.

"When daylight came my mates and I set to work to straighten up.

"Docky Mason's native wife--Tia--was a 'whole waggon with a yaller dog
under the team'. She first of all made us some hot coffee, and gave us a
rousin' breakfast; then she made the New Ireland bucks--who were wantin'
to swim to the mainland--turn to and put a new roof of coco-nut thatch
over our hut, although it was still blowin' a ragin' gale. My! thet gal
was a wonder! She hed eyes like stars, an' red lips an' shinin' pearly
teeth, an' a tongue like a whip-lash when she got mad, an' Docky Mason
uster let her talk to him as if he was a nigger--an' say nuthin'--excep'
givin' a foolish laugh and then slouchin' off. And yet she was as gentle
as a lamb to any of us fellows when we got fever, or had gone down under
more'n twenty fathoms, and was hauled up three parts dead and chokin'.

"Well, boss, we got to straights at last, although it was blowin' as
hard as ever. We had a lot o' gear on shore in that native house, for I
was intendin' to beach the cutter an' give her copper a scrubbin' before
we started divin' regular.

"There was near on a ton o' twist terbacker in tierces (which we used
fur tradin' with the niggers), a ton o' biscuit in fifty pound tins,
boxes o' red an' yaller seed beads, an' knives an' axes, an' a case
o' dynamite, an' heaps o' things that was a direct invitation to the
niggers, an' a challenge ter the Almighty to hev our silly throats cut.
And those four or five bucks, whilst Tia was hustlin' them around, was
jest takin' stock as they worked.

"By sunfall the wind an' sea in the bay ha