was taken far out where the water is very, very
deep--three hundred fathoms--and the mats in which it was wrapped were
weighted so heavily with stones that it took six men to carry it down to
the canoe."

"Why was this done? Why was he not buried on shore?"

"I will tell you, Mr. Sherry. It was done so that when the German
man-of-war comes here, no trace of him will ever be found;" and then she
told me frankly the whole story, and the meaning of the strange silence
of the natives.

Krause, she said, after his savage attack upon Tematau, had told his
terrified wife that he meant to bring back Tematau, and kill Niabon.
After drinking heavily all night, he had started off alone in the
morning, armed with a brace of revolvers and a Derringer pistol. He
at first tried to get some forty or fifty of the Taritai young men to
accompany him, and make a regular marauding expedition upon my village;
but though they were eager to go with him and engage in battle with
their old enemies, Niabon, assisted by the more cautious head men,
succeeded in dissuading them, and finally Krause went off alone. He
travelled along the inner beach of the lagoon, and as soon as he reached
my village marched boldly up to my house, boastfully calling out to the
natives that he had come to take Tematau out of the Englishman's house,
alive or dead--a few minutes later he himself was dead.

A hurried consultation was at once held by the head men, and it was
resolved to dispose of Krause's body so effectually that no trace of it
would ever be found, and every man, woman, and child in the village of
Utiroa was sternly warned not only against even alluding to the manner
of his death, but even admitting that he had even been seen by any one
of them on that particular day. Hastily wrapping the dead man in mats,
the body was taken out to sea, and sunk as Niabon had described.

[Illustration: Fishing as if nothing unusual had occurred 076]

Then the fleet of canoes from the village began fishing as if nothing
unusual had occurred, and after they had been out some hours they were
met by eight or ten canoes from Taritai, which were also engaged in
fishing. The moment they were within speaking distance the Taritai men
inquired whether Krause had fulfilled his threat, and carried Tematau
away. The Utiroa people affected great surprise, and said that they had
seen nothing of him, but that most probably he had thought better of
doing such a foolish and offensiv