escape back.

"They could not drive us forever that way, for the lagoon was only so
large, and at last all of us that yet lived were driven upon the last
sand bank to the west. Beyond lay the open sea. There were ten thousand
of us, and we covered the sand bank from the lagoon edge to the pounding
surf on the other side. No one could lie down. There was no room. We
stood hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. Two days they kept us there,
and the mate would climb up in the rigging to mock us and yell, Yah!
Yah! Yah!' till we were well sorry that we had ever harmed him or his
schooner a month before. We had no food, and we stood on our feet two
days and nights. The little babies died, and the old and weak died,
and the wounded died. And worst of all, we had no water to quench our
thirst, and for two days the sun beat down on us, and there was no
shade. Many men and women waded out into the ocean and were drowned, the
surf casting their bodies back on the beach. And there came a pest of
flies. Some men swam to the sides of the schooners, but they were shot
to the last one. And we that lived were very sorry that in our pride we
tried to take the schooner with the three masts that came to fish for
beche-de-mer.

"On the morning of the third day came the skippers of the three
schooners and that mate in a small boat. They carried rifles, all of
them, and revolvers, and they made talk. It was only that they were
weary of killing us that they had stopped, they told us. And we told
them that we were sorry, that never again would we harm a white man, and
in token of our submission we poured sand upon our heads. And all the
women and children set up a great wailing for water, so that for some
time no man could make himself heard. Then we were told our punishment.
We must fill the three schooners with copra and beche-de-mer. And we
agreed, for we wanted water, and our hearts were broken, and we knew
that we were children at fighting when we fought with white men who
fight like hell. And when all the talk was finished, the mate stood up
and mocked us, and yelled, Yah! Yah! Yah!' After that we paddled away in
our canoes and sought water.

"And for weeks we toiled at catching beche-de-mer and curing it, in
gathering the cocoanuts and turning them into copra. By day and night
the smoke rose in clouds from all the beaches of all the islands of
Oolong as we paid the penalty of our wrongdoing. For in those days of
death it was burned clea