or everything had been jerked off the shelves, and cases
of liquor, powder, cartridges, concertinas and women's hats, etc., were
lying burst open on the floor; so, calling a couple of native sailors
to help me, I was just going below, when I heard Captain Hayes's sharp
tones calling out to our officers to stand by.

From the north-west there came a peculiar droning, humming sound,
mingled with a subdued crashing and roaring of the mountain forest,
which lay about a quarter of a mile astern of us--the noise one hears
when a mighty bush fire is raging in Australia, and a sudden gust of
wind adds to its devastation--and then in another half a minute the
brig spun round like a top to the fury of the first blast, and we were
enveloped in a blinding shower of leaves, twigs and salty spray. She
brought up to her anchors with a jerk that nearly threw everyone off his
feet, and then in an incredibly short time the sea again began to rise,
and the brig to plunge and take water in over the bows and waist--not
heavy seas, but sheets of water nipped off by the force of the wind and
falling on the decks in drenching showers.

Just as I was hurrying below, Hayes stopped me.

'Don't bother about the trade room. Get all the arms and ammunition you
can ready for the boats. I'm afraid that we won't see this through. The
blubber-hunters are all right; but we are not. We have to ride short. I
can't give her more than another ten fathoms of cable--there are a lot
of coral boulders right aft. If the wind hauls round a couple of points
we may clear them, but it isn't going to; and we'll get smothered in the
seas in another ten minutes--if the cables don't part before then.'

Seldom was a ship sent to destruction in such a short time as the
_Leonora_. I had not been five minutes in the main cabin before a heavy
sea came over the bows with a crash, carried away the for'ard deckhouse,
which it swept overboard, killed four people, and poured into the cabin.
I heard Hayes call out to the mate to give her another ten fathoms
of cable, and then, assisted by half a dozen native women and a young
Easter Island half-caste girl named Lalia, wife to one of the five white
traders, began packing our arms and ammunition into two or three strong
trade boxes. In another chest we stowed the ship's chronometers, Hayes's
instruments, and all the charts upon which we could lay hands, together
with about six thousand silver dollars in bags, the ship's books and