with them."

After a little further conversation with the manager, Flemming said he
would have a few hours' pigeon-shooting, returning in time to see the
plantation hands mustered. Knorr wished him to take a Samoan guide, but
the young man laughingly reminded him that he was half a native himself,
and from his infancy almost had been used to wandering about the
mountain forests of the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia; so, bidding
his host good morning, he shouldered his gun and set off, and in another
hour was ascending the first spur of the mountain range, which traverses
the island of Upolu from one end to the other.

He had a reason for declining the services of a guide, for he had
determined to attempt to reach the outlaws' refuge, and, at the risk
of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were
among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a
very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill
Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his
conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was
Binoke--the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted "Tommy
Topsail-tie" of his brother and his sister Medora, the man who, with
Jack Waterwitch, had stood to his father and mother in their poverty and
distress, and had toiled night and day for them without recompense.

As he walked over the soft carpet of fallen leaves which covered the
mountain-side so thickly that no sound came from his footsteps,
he listened carefully. He knew that he was proceeding in the right
direction for the outlaws' refuge--the direction the plantation manager
had impressed on him to avoid--and after a two hours' stiff climb he
found himself on the summit of the spur and overlooking the harbour. Far
below him he could see the _Maori Maid_ being hauled on to the beach,
and eight miles away the beautiful little island of Manono lay basking
in the sun on a sea of deepest, glorious blue.

Suddenly he heard a sound, a faint, soft creeping on the ground
somewhere near him, and he knew that it was the sound of a human
footstep, and that he was watched.

He laid down his gun, and stood up and pretended to closely scan
the thick, leafy canopy of the mighty trees overhead, as if he were
searching for pigeons. Then his voice rang out clearly, and echoed and
re-echoed in the grey and silent forest aisles.

"Binoke, Binoke! 'Tis I! Nobal, Nobal