h a
rudder, and not a steer oar. The latter would have been torn out of my
hands by the brutes--the boat have broached-to and we all have met with
a horrible death. Presently one of the weeping women noticed them, and
uttered a scream of terror.

"_Le malie, le malic!_" ("The sharks, the sharks!") she cried.

My crew then became terribly frightened, and urged me to let them throw
the baskets of heads overboard, but the Samoans became frantic at the
suggestion, all of them weeping.

So we kept on, the boat making good progress, although we could only
keep her afloat by continuous baling of the ensanguined water. In five
minutes more my heart leapt with joy--we were in shallow water, only a
cable length from Salimu beach, and then in another blinding rain squall
we ran on shore, and our broken bows ploughed into the sand, amid the
cries of some hundreds of natives, many of whom held lighted torches.

All of us in the boat were so overwrought that for some minutes we
were unable to speak, and it took a full bottle of brandy to steady the
nerves of my crew and myself. I shall never forget that night run across
Fagaloa Bay.

CHAPTER XXV ~ A BIT OF GOOD LUCK

Between the southern end of the great island of New Guinea and the
Solomon Group there is a cluster of islands marked on the chart as
"Woodlark Islands," but the native name is Mayu. Practically they were
not discovered until 1836, when the master of the Sydney sandal-wooding
barque _Woodlark_ made a survey of the group. The southern part of the
cluster consists of a number of small well-wooded islands, all inhabited
by a race of Papuans, who, said Captain Grimes of the _Woodlark_, had
certainly never before seen a white man, although they had long years
before seen ships in the far distance.

It was on these islands that I met with the most profitable bit of
trading that ever befel me during more than a quarter of a century's
experience in the South Seas.

Nearly thirty years passed since Grimes's visit without the natives
seeing more than half a dozen ships. These were American or Hobart Town
whalers, and none of them came to an anchor--they laid off and on,
and bartered with the natives for fresh provisions, but from the many
inquiries I made, I am sure that no one from these ships put foot on
shore; for the inhabitants were not to be trusted, being warlike, savage
and treacherous.

The master of one of these ships was told by the natives--or rather m