he beach. No arguments that Adair and the captain used could
make him change his mind about remaining on the island. He was too old,
he said, to care about going to America, and Rotumah was a "foine place
to die in--'twas so far away from the bloody redcoats."

As he looked at the two figures who stood on the poop waving their hands
to him, his old eyes dimmed and blurred.

"May the howly Saints bless an' kape thim for iver! Sure, he's a thrue
man, an' she's a good woman!"

Quickly the ship sailed round the point, and Marion Clinton, with a last
look at the white beach, saw the old man rise, take off his ragged hat,
and wave it in farewell.

THE CUTTING-OFF OF THE "QUEEN CHARLOTTE"

One day, early in the year 1814, the look-out man at the South Head of
Port Jackson saw a very strange-looking craft approaching the land from
the eastward. She was a brigantine, and appeared to be in ballast;
and as she drew nearer it was noticed from the shore that she seemed
short-handed, for when within half a mile of the Heads the wind died
away, the vessel fell broadside on to the sea and rolled about terribly;
and in this situation her decks were clearly visible to the lightkeeper
and his men, who could see but three persons on board. In an hour after
the north-easter had died away, a fresh southerly breeze came up, and
then those who were watching the stranger saw that her sails, instead of
being made of canvas, were composed of mats stitched together, similar
to those used by South Sea Island sailing canoes. Awkward and clumsy as
these looked, they yet held the wind well, and soon the brigantine came
sweeping in through the Heads at a great rate of speed.

Running close in under the lee of the land on the southern shore of the
harbour the stranger dropped anchor, and shortly after was boarded by
a boat from the shore, and to the surprise of those who manned her the
vessel was at once recognised as the _Queen Charlotte_, which had sailed
out of Port Jackson in the May of the preceding year.

The naval officer in charge of the boat at once jumped on board, and,
greeting the master, a tall, bronzed-faced man of thirty, whose name was
Shelley, asked him what was wrong, and where the rest of his crew were.

"Dead! Lieutenant Carlisle," answered the master of the brigantine
sadly. "We three--myself, one white seaman, and a native chief--are all
that are left."

*****

Even as far back as 1810 the port of Sydney sent out a