th
intense indignation, as he thought of the injuries and indignities he
had so recently suffered.

"Why, what did they do to you, Otto?" asked his brother.

"Oh! I can't tell you," replied the other; "I'm too mad. Tell 'em,
Pina."

Queen Pina, who had also been engaged for some minutes in wringing the
water from her skirts, sat down, and, in the sweetest of voices, told
how they had been surprised on the islet, how Otto had flattened a
chief's nose with an oar, and how they had afterwards been carried off.

"Then," she added, "when they saw that you were unable to overtake them,
the chief with the swelled nose began to beat poor Otto and pull his
hair savagely. I do believe he would have killed him if a man, who
seemed to be the leader of them all, had not ordered him to desist.
When you put up the sail and began to overtake us, the chief with the
swelled nose got out a rough kind of sack and tried to thrust Otto into
it. While he was struggling with this chief--"

"Fighting," interrupted Otto; "fighting with the baboon."

"Well, fighting, if you prefer it--he asked me if I was brave?"

"No, I didn't; I said game."

"Well--if I was game to jump overboard at the same moment that he did?
I quickly said yes. He twisted himself out of the man's--"

"Baboon's! baboon's!"

"Well--baboon's grasp, and went over the side like an eel, and--"

"And she," interrupted Otto, "she went plump on the other side like a
sack of potatoes, and we met under the canoe and dived well astern
before coming up for breath. You know what pains you took with our
swimming and diving, Dom; it helped us then, I can tell you; and so here
we are, all alive and hearty. But I saw the black fellow goin' to send
a spear at Pina, and can't think why he didn't let fly. P'r'aps he did,
and missed."

"No, he didn't; for Dr Marsh shot him in the arm," said Dominick, "and
thus saved Pauline's life."

"Three cheers for the Queen!" cried little Buxley, who had done good
service at the oar, and whose little bosom was filled with enthusiasm at
the recital of this adventure.

The invitation was heartily responded to.

"An' wan more for the doctor!" shouted Malone.

In this rejoicing frame of mind they returned to Big Island, where
Pauline was received with a warm embrace by the widow Lynch, who had
been dancing about the settlement in a more or less deranged state ever
since the boat left.

That same evening two meetings of considerable i