re we could stop him our prisoner jumped down among the dead and
wounded, got a long knife, an' in ten seconds he had Baian's' head off,
and held it up to us, grinning like a cat, on'y not so nice, ez he hed
jet black, betel-nut stained teeth, and red lips like a piece ev raw
beef.

"We hed no more trouble with the niggers after thet turn-up, you can bet
yer life.

"The buck stayed with us until the luggers came back, and a few days
after we landed him at his own village--ez rich ez Jay Gould, for we
gave him a musket with powder and ball, a cutlass, half a dozen pounds
ev red beads, and two hundred sticks of terbacker. I guess thet thet
nigger was able to buy himself all the wives he wanted, and be a 'big
Injun' fur the end of his days."

CHAPTER II ~ THE OLD SEA LIFE

One Sunday morning--when I was about to leave the dear old city of
Sydney for an unpremeditated and long, long absence in cold northern
climes, I went for a farewell stroll around the Circular Quay, and,
standing on some high ground on the east side, looked down on the mass
of shipping below, flying the flags of all nations, and ranging from
a few hundred to ten thousand tons. Mail steamers, deep sea tramps,
"freezers," colliers--all crowded together, and among them but _one_
single sailing vessel--a Liverpool barque of 1,000 tons, loading wool.
She looked lost, abandoned, out of place, and my heart went out to her
as my eyes travelled from her shapely lines and graceful sheer, to her
lofty spars, tapering yards, and curving jibboom, the end of the latter
almost touching the stern rail of an ugly bloated-looking German tramp
steamer of 8,000 tons. On that very spot where I stood I, when a
boy, had played at the foot of lofty trees--now covered by hideous
ill-smelling wool stores--and had seen lying at the Circular Quay fifty
or sixty noble full-rigged ships and barques, many brigs and schooners,
and but _one_ steamer, a handsome brig-rigged craft, the _Avoca_, the
monthly P. and O. boat, which ran from Sydney to Melbourne to connect
with a larger ship.

Round the point were certainly a few other steamers, old-fashioned
heavily-rigged men-of-war, generally paddle-wheel craft; and, out of
sight, in Darling Harbour, a mile away, were others--coasters--none of
them reaching five hundred tons, and all either barque- or brig-rigged,
as was then the fashion.

And they all, sailers as well as the few steamers, were manned by
_sailor-men_, not by ga