ficers were good men, the hands--white and native--good seamen,
cheerful and obedient--not the lazy, dirty, paint-scrubbers one too
often meets with nowadays, especially on cheaply run big four-masted
sailing ships, flying the red ensign of Old England.

CHAPTER III ~ THE BLIND MAN OF ADMIRALTY ISLAND

We had had a stroke--or rather a series of strokes--of very bad luck.
Our vessel, the _Metaris_, had been for two months cruising among
the islands of what is now known as the Bismarck Archipelago, in the
Northwestern Pacific. We had twice been on shore, once on the coast
of New Ireland, and once on an unknown and uncharted reef between that
island and St. Matthias Island. Then, on calling at one of our trading
stations at New Hanover where we intended to beach the vessel for
repairs, we found that the trader had been killed, and of the station
house nothing remained but the charred centre-post--it had been reduced
to ashes. The place was situated on a little palm-clad islet not three
hundred acres in extent, and situated a mile or two from the mainland,
and abreast of a village containing about four hundred natives, under
whose protection our trader and his three Solomon Island labourers were
living, as the little island belonged to them, and we had placed the
trader there on account of its suitability, and also because the man
particularly wished to be quite apart from the village, fearing that his
Solomon Islanders would get themselves into trouble with the people.

From the excited natives, who boarded us even before we had dropped
anchor, we learned that about a month after we had left poor Chantrey
on his little island a large party of marauding St. Matthias Island
savages, in ten canoes, had suddenly appeared and swooped down upon
the unfortunate white man and his labourers and slaughtered all four of
them; then after loading their canoes with all the plunder they could
carry, they set fire to the house and Chantrey's boat, and made off
again within a few hours.

This was a serious blow to us; for not only had we to deplore the cruel
death of one of our best and most trusted traders, but Chantrey had a
large stock of trade goods, a valuable boat, and had bought over five
hundred pounds' worth of coconut oil and pearl-shell from the New
Hanover natives,--all this had been consumed. However, it was of no use
for us to grieve, we had work to do that was of pressing necessity,
for the _Metaris_ was leaking bad