Now, I say that Woodlark is the place for us. Anyway, I've
bought all the oil casks I could get, and a lot more in shooks, and
so let us bustle and get ready to be out of this unholy Levuka at
daylight."

* This was Monseigneur d'Anthipelles the head of the Marist
Brothers in Oceania.

*****

We did "bustle". In twenty-four hours we were clear of Levuka reef and
spinning along to the W.N. W. before the strong south-east trade, for
our run of 1,600 miles. 'Day and night the little schooner raced
over the seas at a great rate, and we made the passage in seven days,
dropping anchor off the largest village in the island--Guasap.

In ten minutes our decks were literally packed with excited natives, all
armed, but friendly. Had they chosen to kill us and seize the
schooner, it would have been an easy task, for we numbered only eight
persons--captain, mate, bos'un, four native seamen, and myself.

We learned from the natives that two months previously there had been a
terrible hurricane which lasted for three days and devastated two-thirds
of the islands. Thousands of coco-nut trees had been blown down, and the
sea had swept away many villages on the coast. So violent was the surf
that the wreck of the sunken ship on Elaue Island had been cast up in
fragments on the reef, and the natives had secured a quantity of iron
work, copper, and Muntz metal bolts. These articles I at once bargained
for, after I had seen the collection, and for two old Tower muskets,
value five shillings each, obtained the lot--worth L250.

I had arranged with the chief and his head men to buy their oil in the
morning. And White and I found it hard to keep our countenances when
they joyfully accepted to fill every cask we had on the ship each for
twenty sticks of twist tobacco, a cupful of fine red beads and a fathom
of red Turkey twill! Or for five casks I would give a musket, a tin of
powder, twenty bullets, and twenty caps!

In ten minutes I had secured eighty tuns of oil (worth L30 a tun) for
trade goods that cost White less than L20. And the beauty of it was that
the natives were so impressed by the liberality of my terms that they
said they would supply the ship with all the fresh provisions--pigs,
fowls, turtle and vegetables that I asked for, without payment.

As White and I, after our palaver with the head men, were about to
return on board, we noticed two children who were wearing a number of
silver coins, strung on cinnet (c