irdale_,' he replied glibly. 'Belonga to Liverpool--fine biga
ship. We bound to Pam in New Caledonia to load chroma ore, and run
ashore on dark night. Ship break up very quick'--and then he spun off
the rest of his yarn, and a very plausible one it was, too. The ship,
he said, was not injured much at first, and on the following morning
the captain, with the second mate and four hands, had left in one of the
boats for Pam to get assistance. The first mate, bos'un and three hands
were drowned. After waiting for ten days on the wreck the rest of the
crew took to the long boat, for bad weather came on, and the ship began
to pound on the reef.

'But what are you doing here so far to the northward?' asked Hannah, in
his slow, drawling tones. 'Why didn't you steer for New Caledonia? You
were only two days' sail to there from Astrolabe Reefs. Now you are
three hundred miles to the north.'

The man was a marvellous liar. Yes, he said, that was true, but 'Goda
help him,' he would 'speaka true.' He and the nine men with him did not
want to go to New Caledonia, and did not want to have anything more to
do with the captain, who was a very 'harda' man, and so they had stood
to the northward, meaning to land on one of the New Hebrides.

'What was the captain's name?'

'Smeeth--Captain Johna Smeeth. Belonga to Liverpool.'

'Are you one of the ship's officers?'

'I am carpenter,' he answered promptly. 'I all the time sail in Englisha
ship.'

'Just so; are you a Frenchman?' asked Hannah, casually.

'No; I come from Barcelon'.'

'Well,' I said, 'I hope you will get along all right in your boat,
wherever you go. I'll give you a 50-lb. tin of biscuits, some tinned
meats, and as much water as you can take.'

He thanked me effusively, and said he would remember me in his prayers
to the Virgin, etc.

'Have you a compass?' I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders despairingly. No, they had no compass; the
'gooda Goda must be compass' for them.

Mani, Hannah's wife, who was sitting near us, with her youngest child on
her lap, apparently taking no heed of our talk, held the infant up and
smiled; and, as if speaking to it, said in Samoan,--

'He lies. I saw a boat compass in the stern sheets of the boat.'

'Well, I'm sorry I can't give you a compass,' I said. 'Alan, pass up a
tin of biscuit and a case of meat. The breeze is freshening, and we must
get along.'

Then our visitor made an earnest appeal. His boat was leaky, his
comrade