r
paddles in their hands, like so many fierce black executioners, prepared
to make an end of me.

Mr Ebony signed to me to get into the boat, and feeling that perhaps
they might be going to make a prisoner of me and take me to another
island, I asked myself whether I ought not to resist; but seeing how
useless it would be, I resigned myself to my fate, jumped into the
canoe, Mr Ebony followed; and with no singing and splashing now, but in
utter silence, we pushed off over the grey sea.

"Where are we going, I wonder?" I said to myself.

"Ikan, Ikan," said Mr Ebony, shaking something in the bottom of the
canoe.

"Ikan! where's that, I wonder?" I said to myself. "Why, these are
fishing-lines. Ikan, fish," I exclaimed, pointing to the lines and then
to the sea, making as if to throw in one of the lines.

"Ikan, Ikan," cried Mr Ebony, grinning with delight, and then he
touched my hands and the lines, and patted my back--dancing about
afterwards till he nearly danced overboard, after which he became a
little more calm, but kept on smiling in the most satisfied way, and
shouting "Ikan, Ikan;" all the others saying it after him, as if highly
satisfied, and when to please them I said "Ikan, Ikan," they uttered a
shout, and I felt quite at home, and delighted at having come.

I don't know how it was, but as soon as I felt satisfied that they were
not going to do me any harm I began to learn how much they were all like
a set of schoolboys of my own age, for big, strong, well-made men as
they were, they seemed to be full of fun, and as young as they could be.

They paddled swiftly out and away from the land, working hard to send
the great canoe well along over the long rollers that we seemed to
climb, to glide down the other side; and, with the exception of the
heaving, slow rolling motion of the sea, all being deliciously calm, I
thoroughly enjoyed my ride, especially as Mr Ebony, who was evidently a
very big man amongst his people, had taken a great liking to me and kept
on drawing my attention to every splash on the surface of the water, and
then to the busy way in which he was preparing his coarse fishing-lines.

I suppose there are some boys who never cared for fishing; but however
cruel it may be as a sport, I must confess that I was always
passionately fond of it, and now to be out on this tropic sea before
sunrise, with the stars seen faintly here and there, the blacks keeping
up a rhythmical motion of the pad