some other part of the world. That
is what I mean to do, anyway."

Hendry listened with the closest attention, and something like a sigh
escaped from his over-burdened bosom. "I suppose it's the best thing,
Sam."

"It is the _only_ thing."

The captain bent down and looked at the compass and thought for a
moment.

"About S.W. will be the course for tonight. To-morrow I can tell better
when I get the sun and a look at the chart. Anyway, S.W. is within a
point or less of a good course for the Admiralty Group."

He wore the boat's head round, as Chard eased off the main-sheet in
silence, and for the rest of the night they took turn and turn about at
the steer-oar.

In the morning a light breeze set in, and the whaleboat slipped over the
sunlit sea like a snow-white bird, with the water bubbling and hissing
under her clean-cut stem. Then Hendry examined his chart.

"We'll sight nothing between here and the Admiralty Group, except
Greenwich Island, which is right athwart our course."

"Do you know it?"

"No; but I've heard that there is a passage into the lagoon. We might
put in and spell there for a day or two; or, if we don't go inside, we
could land anywhere on one of the lee-side islands, and get some young
coconuts and a turtle or two."

"Any natives there?"

"Not any, as far as I know, though I've heard that there were a few
there about twenty years ago. I expect they have either died out or
emigrated to the northward. And if there are any there, and they don't
want us to land, we can go on and leave them alone. We have plenty of
provisions for a month, and will get more water than we want every night
as long as we are in this cursed rainy belt. What we do want is wind.
This breeze has no heart in it, and it looks like a calm before noon, or
else it will haul round to the wrong quarter."

His former surmise proved correct, for about midday the boat was
becalmed on an oily, steamy sea under a fierce, brazen sun. This lasted
for the remainder of the day, and then was followed by the usual squally
night.

And so for three days they sailed, making but little progress during the
daytime, for the wind was light and baffling, but doing much better at
night.

On the evening of the third day they sighted the northernmost islet
of Pikirami lagoon, and stood by under its lee till daylight, little
dreaming that those whose life-blood they would so eagerly have shed
were sleeping calmly and peacefully in the na