ders had lost heart for a moment,
though Harry, the elder of the two, was in consumption and not at all
strong.

As soon as we had sufficiently recovered to be able to talk and tell our
story, we were pleased to hear from the captain that the ship was not
badly injured, and that the pumps--short-handed as he then was--could
easily keep the water down; also that all the other boats were safe,
and had signalled that they had each 'killed,' and were lying by their
whales.

Early in the morning the four ships were within a few miles of each
other, and each had one or more whales alongside, cutting-in. The
schooner, too, was in sight, lying becalmed under the lee of Ponape. The
captain of the whaler lent me one of his boats, paid me a fair price for
the loss of our own, and otherwise treated us handsomely. He was highly
pleased at having such 'greasy luck,' i.e., getting three fish, and,
besides presenting me with another barrel of potatoes, gave me four
bolts of canvas, and each of our natives came away with a small case of
tobacco, and five dollars in silver.

We had a long pull to the schooner, and our arrival was hailed with
cries of delight. The skipper, we were pleased to learn, was nearly
dead, having been severely beaten by the women passengers on board, one
of whom, creeping up behind him as he was steering, threw a piece of
_tappa_ cloth over his head, while the others bore him to the deck and
tied him up and hammered him. He told me a few days afterwards that he
had not the slightest recollection of leaving us in the boat.

The wreckage upon which the whale-ship struck was, so her captain
imagined, the same which had capsized our boat. As far as he could make
out in the darkness, it was a long and wide piece of decking, belonging
to a large ship. Our boat, very probably, had gone half her length
on top of the edge of it, and was then washed off again after she had
bilged; and the strong current had set us clear.

A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE FAR SOUTH SEAS

Donald MacBride and myself were the only Britishers living on one of the
North Pacific island lagoons when Christmas of 1880 drew near, and we
determined to celebrate it in a manner that would fill our German and
American trading rivals throughout the group with envy. MacBride was
a bony, red-headed Scotchman, with a large heart and a small, jealous,
half-caste wife. The latter acquisition ruled him with a rod of iron,
much to his financial and moral ben