ne can't help that in these seas, where there are so many
pirates on the water and such murderous blackguards on the land. I carry
on a trade in sandal-wood with the Feejee Islands; and if you choose,
Ralph, to behave yourself and be a good boy, I'll take you along with me
and give you a good share of the profits. You see I'm in want of an
honest boy like you, to look after the cabin and keep the log, and
superintend the traffic on shore sometimes. What say you, Ralph, would
you like to become a sandal-wood trader?"

I was much surprised by this explanation, and a good deal relieved to
find that the vessel, after all, was not a pirate; but instead of
replying I said, "If it be as you state, then why did you take me from my
island, and why do you not now take me back?"

The captain smiled as he replied, "I took you off in anger, boy, and I'm
sorry for it. I would even now take you back, but we are too far away
from it. See, there it is," he added, laying his finger on the chart,
"and we are now here,--fifty miles at least. It would not be fair to my
men to put about now, for they have all an interest in the trade."

I could make no reply to this; so, after a little more conversation, I
agreed to become one of the crew, at least until we could reach some
civilized island where I might be put ashore. The captain assented to
this proposition, and after thanking him for the promise, I left the
cabin and went on deck with feelings that ought to have been lighter, but
which were, I could not tell why, marvellously heavy and uncomfortable
still.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Bloody Bill--Dark surmises--A strange sail, and a strange crew, and a
still stranger cargo--New reasons for favouring missionaries--A murderous
massacre, and thoughts thereon.

Three weeks after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, I was
standing on the quarter-deck of the schooner watching the gambols of a
shoal of porpoises that swam round us. It was a dead calm. One of those
still, hot, sweltering days, so common in the Pacific, when Nature seems
to have gone to sleep, and the only thing in water or in air that proves
her still alive, is her long, deep breathing, in the swell of the mighty
sea. No cloud floated in the deep blue above; no ripple broke the
reflected blue below. The sun shone fiercely in the sky, and a ball of
fire blazed, with almost equal power, from out the bosom of the water. So
intensely still was it, and so perf