the island." He held up his hand, with
the gold braid on the wrist, to command silence; and the natives, gazing
open-mouthed, looked and wondered at the gesture. These sailing gods were
certainly arrayed in most gorgeous vestments, and their canoe, though
devoid of a grinning figure-head, was provided with a most admirable and
well-uniformed equipment.

A coral rock jutted high out of the sea to the left hard by. Its summit
was crowded with a basking population of sea-gulls and pelicans. The
captain gave the word to "easy all." In a second the gig stopped short,
as those stout arms held her. He rose in his place and lifted the
six-shooter. Then he pointed it ostentatiously at the rock, away from the
native canoes, and held up his hand yet again for silence. "We'll give
'em a taste of what we can do, boys," he said, "just to show 'em, not to
hurt 'em." At that he drew the trigger twice. His first two chambers were
loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. Twice the big gun roared;
twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. As the smoke cleared
away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly cowed with terror,
saw ten or a dozen torn and bleeding birds float mangled upon the water.

"Now for the dynamite!" the captain said, cheerily, proceeding to lower a
small object overboard by a single wire, while he held up his hand a
third time to bespeak silence and attention.

The natives looked again, with eyes starting from their heads. The
captain gave a little click, and pointed with his finger to a spot on
the water's top, a little way in front of him. Instantly, a loud report,
and a column of water spurted up into the air, some ten or twelve feet,
in a boisterous fountain. As it subsided again, a hundred or so of the
bright-colored fish that browse among the submerged, coral-groves of
these still lagoons, rose dead or dying to the seething, boiling surface.

The captain smiled. Instantly the natives set up a terrified shout.
"It is even as he said," they cried. "These gods are his ministers!
The white-faced Korong is a very great deity! He is indeed the true
Tu-Kila-Kila. These gods have come for him. They are very mighty. Thunder
and lightning and waterspouts are theirs. The waves do as they bid. The
sea obeys them. They are here to take away our Tu-Kila-Kila from our
midst. And what will then become of the island of Boupari? Will it not
sink in the waves of the sea and disappear? Will not the sun in heave