ders who worked for the three white men were more
or less allied to their wives by ties of blood or marriage, and there
was not one of them who would not have yielded up his or her life in
their defence.

Stenhouse, who was the leader of the adventurous party, was a man of
about forty-five years of age, and, like his two comrades, an ex-sailor.
He was nearly six feet in height, and possessed of such powers of
strength and endurance that his name was known throughout the Western
Pacific to almost every white man, but his once handsome features were
marred by such a terrible disfigurement, that those who came to know
the man and his sterling character always thought or spoke of him with
genuine and respectful pity. What had caused this cruel distortion was
known to but three other persons besides himself--the mother of his
children, his son-in-law, Thomas Adams, and the man who had inflicted
the injury; and to spare the reader's feelings as much as possible, it
need only be said that the left side of his face had been so injured by
violence of some kind as to be pitiful to look upon, the more so as the
eye was missing.

* * * * *

Late one evening, just as Stenhouse and his son-in-law, Adams, were
smoking their last pipes before tarning in, their comrade entered the
house hurriedly, accompanied by one of their native employees, who had
been away on a fishing excursion.

"Here's news! There's a big full-rigged ship just anchored under Cape
Stephens. Masik boarded her, and had a yarn with the mate."

"Where is she from?" asked Stenhouse, turning his one eye upon the
native, Masik.

"I know not, master. But she is a great ship with many men on
board--some white, and some yellow, with shaven heads.

"Ah, a Calcutta-Sydney ship, most likely," said Stenhouse to his
comrades. Then turning to Masik--"Why came she here? Didst ask?"

"Aye," replied the man in his native tongue; "the ship came here because
there be many sick, and two dead men on board. It is a strong sickness."

"Didst speak of us white men here?"

The man nodded. "Aye, and the mate said that the captain would like thee
all to come to the ship; but to hasten, for when the two men are buried
to-morrow the ship will sail And the mate gave me these for thee."

Adams eagerly extended his hand for a bundle of newspapers which Masik
carried wrapped up in a piece of old sail-cloth.

"This is a god-send," said