re he could dive for it was swallowed by a _kura_
(rock-cod).

"How know you?" she asked.

"Because my mother found it in the belly of one of those we caught, when
she was cooking it," he replied promptly.

Presently Niabon, who knew exactly to the smallest detail where
everything was stowed in the boat, told him to look in one of the stern
lockers for the fishing tackle, where he would find a small hand casting
net, with which he and Tematau could go catch some grey mullet, while
she, Lucia, and myself, walked round the island.

Bringing my gun with me--for there were great numbers of small golden
plover flying past us towards the sand patches now being revealed by the
ebbing tide, we started off, Niabon leading, and conducting us directly
towards the centre of the islet, which was less than three-quarters of a
mile from shore to shore, and was the northernmost of a chain of five
or six, almost connected with each other at low water, and forming the
northern horn of the lagoon. A short walk brought us to a small cleared
space, enclosed by some heavy timber. The ground was devoid of any
foliage with the exception of some straggling, thorny bushes, growing up
between the layers of what seemed to be a solid bed of coral slabs cast
up by the action of the sea during heavy storms long years before.

"It was once a deep hole and was used as a well, long, long ago," said
Niabon, "but the bones of seven white men lie there under the stones.
Their bodies were thrown into the well, and then for two days some of
the people of Tarawa threw stones upon them till the hole, which was
five fathoms across from its sloping banks, and a fathom and a half down
to where the fresh water lay, was filled, and only a flat surface of
stones was to be seen. Come, let us get away to the other side, for
the air here is hot and foul from the smell of the damp soil underneath
these big trees. It is never dry, for the sun cannot get to it."

We gladly followed her, and soon reached the other side of the island,
which faced the lagoon, of which we had a glorious view as far as eye
could see. Then Niabon told us the story of the well--a story that,
horrible as it was, was but a counterpart of many such tragedies which
had taken place all over the North and South Pacific, more
especially after the settlement of New South Wales, in 1788, and when
sandal-wooding and whaling brought hundreds of ships into the South
Seas, the former being too often ma