and spending their lives in time of peace in the
wildest dissipation and excesses.

In those days the American whaling fleet made Jakoits and the other
three harbours on the beautiful island their rendezvous before sailing
northward to the coasts of Japan and Siberia. Sometimes there would be
as many as thirty ships arrive within a week of each other, carrying
from thirty to forty hands each; and these, when given liberty by their
captains, at once associated with the beachcombing element, and turned
an island paradise into a hell during their stay on shore.

There was among these beachcombers a man named Larmer. He was of
Herculean stature and strength, and was, in a manner, their leader. It
was his habit in his drunken moments to vaunt of the bloody deeds
which he had perpetrated during his crime-stained career in the Pacific
Islands. For the lives of natives he had absolutely no regard, and
had committed so many murders in the Gilbert Islands that he had been
forcibly taken on board a whaler by the few white men living there, and
threatened with instant death if he returned.

The whaleship landed him on Ponape, and his presence soon became a
curse. Being possessed of plenty of arms and ammunition, he soon gained
the friendship of a native chief ruling over the western district of the
island, and his savage nature at once showed itself by his offering to
destroy the inhabitants of a little island named Pakin, who had in some
way offended this chief. His offer was accepted, and, accompanied by
five ruffianly whites and some hundreds of natives, the unfortunate
people were surprised and butchered. Elated with this achievement,
Larmer returned to Ponape, and, during the orgy which took place to
celebrate the massacre, he shot dead one of his white companions who had
displeased him over some trifling matter.

The news was brought by a native to Challoner, who with a fellow-trader
and several local chiefs was sitting outside his house smoking and
enjoying the cool of the evening, and watching the flashing torches of
a number of canoes catching flying fish beyond the barrier reef. Neither
of them felt surprised, and Challoner remarked to the native that it was
good to know that one bad and useless man was dead, but that it would be
better still to hear that the man who slaughtered a whole community in
cold blood was dead also.

"I wouldn't have said that if I were you," said Dawson, the other
trader, nervously; "that f