, like English children,
but as heathens they are born, and as heathens they die, without hope.

A boat is now reported coming off from the shore. A large canoe
follows. In the boat are fewer men than left the ship. What has been
the fate of the rest? They come alongside, and we order the big canoe
to keep off. The supercargo and Taro make their appearance on deck.
Their escape has been most miraculous. Already had the clubs of the
natives begun to play on the heads of their companions, and five had
fallen. Golding tells me that he expected every moment to be his last.
The man next him had been struck down, and lay writhing on the ground,
when a cry was raised, and the canoes were seen hurrying away from the
ship, the savages refrained from letting drop their uplifted clubs, and
watched the approaching canoes.

When the messenger with the note arrived there was a long consultation.
Golding says he never felt so uneasy. It was handed to Tony Hinks, who,
unable to read, gave it to Golding. He assumed a tone of authority, and
through Taro told the savages that if all the survivors were not
released their chiefs would be carried away captives. They seemed to
hesitate. Golding believed that they were balancing in their minds
whether they loved their chiefs or the blood of the white strangers
most. At last they decided to let Golding and Taro with three other men
go, and to keep Tony Hinks, whom they take to be a chief, as a hostage.
Tony was very unhappy at being left, and tried to escape, but the
savages held him fast, and Taro, it seems, who owes him a grudge, would
not help him. Thus we are placed in a difficulty to know how to get
Tony back without first liberating the chiefs. If it were not for the
boatswain, the captain says he would hang all four at the yard-arm. At
last it is decided that one alone shall go, and Bent is instructed to
tell him, that unless the boatswain instantly returns alive and unhurt,
the other three shall be hung up. I put him on board a canoe, which
comes out to meet our boat as we pull in.

Some time passes, and at length Tony appears on the beach. We make
signals that he must be brought off in a canoe. As he steps into the
boat, stout-hearted fellow as he generally is, he sinks down, overcome
with the terror he has been in. Several of the crew cry out that now we
have got him back, we must hang the savages we have in our power in
revenge for our shipmates who have been clu