she turned her head and looked back. Perhaps Loloku would try
again. Then, as they came to the boat, a young girl, at a sign from
O'Shea, took off the loose blouse, and they placed her, face downwards,
across the bilge of the boat, and two pair of small, eager, brown hands
each seized one of hers and dragged the white, rounded arms well over
the keel of the boat. O'Shea walked round to that side, drawing through
his hands the long, heavy, and serrated tail of the FAI--the gigantic
stinging-ray of Oceana. He would have liked to wield it himself, but
then he would have missed part of his revenge--he could not have seen
her face. So he gave it to a native, and watched, with the smile of a
fiend, the white back turn black and then into bloody red as it was cut
to pieces with the tail of the FAI.

* * * * *

The sight of the inanimate thing that had given no sign of its agony
beyond the shudderings and twitchings of torn and mutilated flesh was,
perhaps, disappointing to the tiger who stood and watched the dark
stream that flowed down on both sides of the boat. Loloku touched his
arm--"Mesi, stay thy hand. She is dead else."

"Ah," said O'Shea, "that would be a pity; for with one hand shall she
live to plant taro."

And, hatchet in hand, he walked in between the two brown women who held
her hands. They moved aside and let go. Then O'Shea swung his arm; the
blade of the hatchet struck into the planking, and the right hand of
Sera fell on the sand.

A man put his arms around her, and lifted her off the boat. He placed
his hand on the blood-stained bosom and looked at Macy O'Shea.

"E MATE! [Dead!]" he said.

THE RANGERS OF THE TIA KAU

Between Nanomea and Nanomaga--two of the Ellice Group--but within a few
miles of the latter, is an extensive submerged shoal, on the charts
called the Grand Cocal Reef, but by the people of the two islands known
as Tia Kau (The Reef). On the shallowest part there are from four to
ten fathoms of water, and here in heavy weather the sea breaks. The
British cruiser BASILISK, about 1870, sought for the reef, but reported
it as non-existent. Yet the Tia Kati is well known to many a Yankee
whaler and trading schooner, and is a favourite fishing-ground of the
people of Nanomaga--when the sharks give them a chance.

* * * * *

One night Atupa, Chief of Nanomaga, caused a huge fire to be lit on the
beach as a signal to the people of Nanomea that a MALAGA, or party of
voyagers, was c