ll.

"Ah! that was my time! Ere he could rise I sprang at him, and Juan
raised the axe and struck off his right foot; and then Liro, the man
who steered, handed me his knife. It was a sharp knife, and I stabbed
him, even as he had stabbed my husband, till my arm was tired, and all
my hate of him had died away in my heart.

* * * * *

"There was quick work then. My two countrymen went below into the cabin
and took Motley's pistol from the table; ... then I heard two shots.

"GUK! He was a fat, heavy man, that Riedermann, the captain; the three
of us could scarce drag him up on deck and cast him over the side, with
the other two.

"Then Juan and Liro talked, and said: 'Now for these Tafito men; they,
too, must die.' They brought up rifles, and went to the forepart of the
schooner, where the Tafito men lay in a drunken sleep, and shot them
dead.

"In two more days we saw land--the island we have left but now, and
because that there were no people living there--only empty houses could
we see--Juan and Liro sailed the schooner into the lagoon.

"We took such things on shore as we needed, and then Juan and Liro cut
away the topmasts and towed the schooner to the deep pool, where they
made holes in her, so that she sank, away out of the sight of men.

* * * * *

"Juan and Liro were kind to me, and when my child was born, five months
after we landed, they cared for me tenderly, so that I soon became
strong and well.

"Only two ships did we ever see, but they passed far-off like clouds
upon the sea-rim; and we thought to live and die there by ourselves.
Then there came a ship, bringing back the people who had once lived
there. They killed Juan and Liro, but let me and the child live. The
rest I have told you.... How is this captain named? ... He is a
handsome man, and I like him."

* * * * *

We landed Nerida at Yap, in the Western Carolines. A year afterwards,
when I left the PALESTINE, I heard that Packenham had given up the sea,
was trading in the Pelew Group, and was permanently married, and that
his wife was the only survivor of the ill-fated ALIDA.

THE CHILEAN BLUEJACKET

A Tale Of Easter Island

Alone, in the most solitary part of the Eastern Pacific, midway between
the earthquake-shaken littoral of Chili and Peru, and the thousand
palm-clad islets of the Low Archipelago, lies an island of the days
"when the world was young." By the lithe-limbed, soft-eyed descendants
of the forgotten and m