ts slip round and seize them."

*****

Great results sometimes attend upon the merest trifles, and so it
fell about now, for by a simple accident were some hundreds of these
innocent, unsuspecting people of Nukufetau saved from a dreadful fate;
for just as Mana, who was the chiefs brother and the uncle of the two
poor half-caste children in the canoe, was about to go below, followed
by his people, one of the boat's crew on the starboard side dropped the
butt of his musket heavily on the naked foot of a young Chileno boy, who
uttered an exclamation of pain.

Wondering where the cry came from, the old native, before he could be
stayed, ran to the port side and looked over. There, lying beneath him,
were four boats filled with armed men.

Suspicion of evil intent at once flashed through his mind, and,
springing back, he gave voice to a loud cry of alarm.

"Back, back, my children!" he cried. "There be many boats here, and
in them are men with guns and swords." And then he and those with him
rushed for the break of the poop, only to meet the black muzzles of
carbines and the glint of twenty cutlasses.

Alas! poor creatures, what hope was there for them, unarmed and almost
naked, against their despoilers? One by one they were thrown down,
seized, and bound; all but the old man, who, with his naked hands,
fought valiantly, till Martinas, seizing a cutlass from a seaman, passed
it through his naked body.

With one despairing cry, the old man threw up his arms and fell upon his
face, and Martinas, drawing out his bloody weapon, ran to the side and
looked over. The canoes were there, but the two girls were gone.

"Curses on you, Juan!" he shouted. "Why did you not seize them?"

But Senor Arguello, with a grim smile, took him by the arm and pointed
to where Juan, the second mate, was chasing the two girls in his boat.
At the sound of the struggle on deck they had jumped overboard, and,
fearless of the sharks, were swimming swiftly for the reef, not a
quarter of a mile away.

Standing on the poop-deck of the barque, the captain and Arguello
watched the chase with savage interest. Halfway to the shore they saw
Juan stand up and level his carbine and fire. The ball struck the water
just ahead of the two girls, who were swimming close together. Then, in
another two or three minutes, Juan was on top of them, and they saw the
oars peaked.

"Saints be praised! He's got one," said Arguello. "They are lifting her
into the bo