CHAPTER V

ASHORE ON A CANNIBAL ISLAND

“My dear Mr. Mate, land we must, and will subdue them by—well, by kindness or the reverse. The clubs are ugly weapons if they get to close quarters. As to the guns, they come, I think, from Birmingham; and if they aim at us we are perfectly safe. If they shoot at random, well, one or two of us might bite the sand accidentally.

“Then,” he added, “they would have a feast.”

“What, sir, you don’t mean to say they are cannibals?”

“They are nothing less or more.

“But,” he continued, “there is a lagoon in yonder isle of St. Peter[8] in which shells lie more thickly strewn than leaves on a garden path in autumn. This beautiful isle has probably never been visited by white men, except perhaps the Queensland pirates, who carry the natives off by force, and make ‘free slaves’ of them.”

“Pirates?”

“I call them so. Oh, Mr. Webber, did you only know one-half the cruelties perpetrated by these nefarious murdering traders, you’d long for the grave to close over you and shut you out from a blood-stained world.”

The island seemed to come nearer and still more near, and its beauties were soon revealed as one glorious whole, one magnificent Elysium.

Just at that moment a little hand was laid on Antonio’s arm.

There stood Teenie, looking up with pleading smile into his face.

“Well, dearie?”

“Oh, please, Captain ’Tonio, can I go into the foretop to look at fairy-land?”

“Yes, dearie, but no farther.”

Next moment she and the big monkey, Dosie, were swarming up the rigging, and it would have been difficult to say which went the quicker.

She had a belt around her shoulder, and suspended thereto Miss Leona’s lorgnettes.

She turned them on the lovely green island, and every minute a look of joy and delight o’erspread her pretty face, which flushed with pleasure.

“O my! Jacko,” she cried, putting one arm over the monkey’s shoulder. “I is glad I runned away. We’s got to fairy-land at last!”

Then she put the lorgnettes to his eyes, and the creature, with a wisdom that was almost human, pretended to look through, if he did not do so in reality.

“Ach! Ach! Ach!” he cried.

“Yes,” said Teenie, “it is really a fairy-land, only—heigho! all the fairies is black, and they has nasty guns.”

Teenie was infinitely more happy now than she had been for weeks. She was a thorough wanderer at heart, and had she known Tennyson’s poems, she might have quoted him thus:—

Truly this fairy-land of Teenie’s was beautiful beyond compare—hills green-wooded to the top, rolling woods and feathery palms, a blue or opal sea, breaking in long snowy wavelets, or on the silvery coral sand; a land of languor, a land in which a poet might laze in the bright sunshine, and dream his happy life away.

But—ah! the “but” is to come.

Nearer and nearer to this strange isle of beauty crept the Zingara; but finally, with two men in the chains to take soundings, and a hand in the foretop to look out for shoal water, she bore more to the west, as if to leave the island.

Antonio had no such intention. Having gone some miles, he went round one, and returning, struck the island on the north side, where there was, and is of course, a lovely land-locked bay; and here the anchor was lot go, and the bonnie barque swung to the tide.

From this bay, strange to say, there was a kind of natural canal leading from the sea right into the centre of the island, when it spread out into a deep and splendid lagoon, almost circular, fringed with cocoanut trees, banana trees, and glorious palms. Not far from the other end of the lagoon was the house of the chief himself. If he was still alive, and had not abdicated, then Antonio was sure of a hearty welcome, for the two had been very friendly in days gone by.

Antonio had gone below, and was partaking of some luncheon in the company of little Teenie and Barclay Stuart. As usual, the former was plying him with questions, as to the fun they would have with the black fairies on this fairy island.

Presently Archie, the first mate, entered, to make a startling report.

“There is a great din on shore, sir,” he said, in a low voice; “boats are collecting in scores, and I fear, sir, that they are about to attempt boarding us.”

“I don’t think they will try that, mate,” said Antonio; “but anyhow, get up the boarding netting, call all hands, and serve out arms, and get ready the war-rocket apparatus. If they want to fight, we shall of course oblige them, but I would far rather land in peace.”

“All right, sir.”

And Archie Webber went quickly away to obey orders.

In half-an-hour all was ready for peace or for war.

And none too soon. The sea ’twixt the coral sands and the ship was now covered with light canoes filled with armed savages.

In truth they looked a bloodthirsty and terrible lot. As they swept nearer and nearer to the vessel, they divided their flotilla into two, with the evident intention of attacking both on the port side and the starboard.

Miss Leona had received strict injunction to remain below with Teenie.

And now Antonio quietly walked up to the bridge, and with his field-glasses quizzed the advancing boats.

To his great joy and relief, one of the very first boats, a larger and more pretentious one than any of the others, contained an old friend.

“Lolo! Lolo! don’t you know me?” shouted the captain from the bridge.

Lolo was a great chief, the king’s prime-minister in a way of speaking, and he had visited and dwelt in Valparaiso, so could talk fairly good English.

“Ha!” he cried, “me is delightee so vely much, me could weep the tears of joy. We come to takee yer ship; now we not shall do. We not eatee nobody now. Ha, ha!”

Down Lolo threw his long strong shield, his spear and awful club.

Then he stood up, and gathered the other canoes around him.

He spoke in a strange and musical language to the savages.

And every head was bowed.

No sooner had he finished, than all appearance of hostility was at an end.

A rope ladder was thrown down the side, and in a minute more Lolo and the captain were shaking hands on the quarter-deck, for the days of auld lang syne.

Antonio bade the mate and our boy heroes get up coloured cotton and beads, and distribute a yard or two of the former, and a handful of the latter, to every canoe.

Thus was a bloodless victory ensured, and a welcome more hearty than even Antonio himself could have expected.

Meanwhile he and Lolo held a long confab on deck, where they drank sherbet together, and smoked cigars of peace.

Yes, the king was alive, Lolo told the captain, and how delighted he would be to see him.

Antonio handed Lolo a watch.

“For you,” he said.

Lolo’s eyes sparkled with delight.

“For me!” he repeated; “poor Lolo all unworthy is!”

“And the king?” he added.

“I have much fine present for him, Lolo.”

“And here, dear old Lolo, we shall stop a year, to load up with sponges, pearl-shell, and pearls.”

“Oh, these the king has in abundance, and will sell. And our boys they shall fishee for you, and dive; bling up the plenty much good shell.”

Then he emitted a startling whoop that would have raised envy in the breast of a Mexican cow-boy.

“I shout,” he explained, “’cause I is too happy to live. Byme-bye, the black men of Vra-fou come here, makee war on us. You help to killee all, all. Then too much plenty good feast.”

The boats and skiffs were soon all dispersed, and the savage warriors went back in peace to their own little grass huts in the clumps of cocoa-nut trees.

Then, when everything was arranged on board the Zingara, a boat was called away, and leaving Archie Webber, the mate, in charge, down the ladder tripped Captain Antonio, Barclay, and Davie Drake.

They had just got seated, and were about to shove off, when on the companion-ladder was heard the pattering of little feet, and next moment in jumped Teenie herself, and seated herself beside Barclay.

“Oh, dearie,” cried Antonio, “I fear I cannot let you come. I fear——”

“I doesn’t fear,” cried the little sailor maiden, “and I’se going, so that’s settled. Sailor men, s’ove off.”

They laughed and obeyed.

Lolo was to be their guide and safeguard. He was evidently facile princeps in this beautiful isle of the sea.

Perhaps there was a good deal of the martinet or tyrant as well as savage about Lolo. He was a finely formed man; tall, brown-skinned, and rather handsome. Probably he belonged to some other and distant island, for he possessed not the large mouth and thick lips that, as a rule, distinguish the natives of Polynesia.

But every muscle in his body stuck out like knots and cords, and seemed as hard as the mainstay of a full-rigged ship.

Pride is a characteristic of nearly all savages, more particularly if they are chiefs. Lolo was no exception.

While passing through the beautiful canal-like opening that led into the broad blue lagoon, Lolo regaled his listeners with stories of his own deeds of valour and prowess.

Barclay and Davie, though they pretended to be listening, were more taken up with the beauties of nature. The narrow inlet was—

In every branch or leaf of feathery palm, in every frond of great tree fern that bent down to kiss the water, there was one bird or more. Kingfishers of the most gorgeous hues flitted silently here and there, or, like chips of rainbow, they suddenly darted from their perches, and dived into the water, to be seen no more.

“I say,” said Barclay to Davie, “couldn’t we do some glorious bird’s-nesting here?”

Davie Drake’s eyes sparkled at the very thought of it.

“And some nice fishing,” added Teenie.

“Yes,” Lolo was saying; “suppose one man ’ffend me, I cut he head off, plenty too much quick.”

“Too quick to be pleasant, I should think,” said Davie Drake; “for the man I mean.”

“Oh, how nice!” cried Teenie, “and does all, all the blood come out, Mr. Lolo?”

“Yes, Missie, yes, and the body he tumble down. All same, I put head on pole, and stickee he ’longside my hut.”

“And are the men in this island still cannibals?” asked Barclay.

“They cookee, and eatee foh true, the men they kill in de fight, what you call enemy. No eat island man.”

“Would they eat me?” said Teenie innocently.

Lolo put his hand on the child’s arm as if to judge of her condition.

Barclay longed to throttle him.

“I not like discourage you,” he said. “No, I not do that thing; in two tree year, plaps, you be fit. Great warrior not care eat much baby. Makee he heart soft.”

Teenie was satisfied.

Lolo now broke off into a dissertation on the merits and delights of man’s flesh as food. He had a wonderful flow of language, for the subject was altogether to his taste.

It would be too horrible to read or write all he said, but I must tell you that his was a savage eloquence worthy of a better cause, and that made the blood of even the rough sailors in the boat run cold as they listened to him.

If you have not yet read Elia’s (Lamb’s) eulogy on a roast sucking pig, do so by all means. Elia was eloquent, but Lolo on his subject could have given him twenty points out of the hundred, and beaten him easily.

Even Antonio was at last obliged to change the subject. It became too gruesome.

But by this time they were nearly across the lagoon, and soon they landed.

The king’s hut, or shall we say palace, was built on a small hill, and stood inside a compound composed of cocoa-nut matting.

The way to it led up through a beautiful avenue of flowery trees, the perfume from which hung heavy on the air all around.

And this avenue, which was of smooth green grass, was lined with the king’s armed and savage soldiery on both sides, and all the way up.

Our heroes had never seen so terrible a display, such cruel-looking broadswords and strangely shaped axe-like clubs. Higher up and nearer to the gates these soldiers were women of bloodthirsty and fearful aspect. It must be confessed that both Barclay and Davie were far from easy in their minds, and would have given a good deal to be back in their ship.

Antonio was quite unconcerned; and nodded and bowed to many of the under-chiefs, whom he had know in days gone by.

But Teenie was delighted at all she saw. She looked up into the warriors’ faces, and even patted them as she passed along, till, grim as they were, they were fain to smile.

She came to one warrior, an old friend of Antonio’s, who was more wildly dressed than any of the others, and wore strings of gay beads, and armlets, necklets, and bangles of beautiful coral around waist and limbs.

Right through the septum of his nose, extending across both cheeks, was a small dagger.

Teenie confronted him, examined his bangles, his shield, and fingers. Then she looked up in his face, and innocently remarked—

“Is you a big chief?”

He nodded and laughed.

“Oh, and you is handsome too. I should like to be dressed just like you, and fight plenty everywhere.”

. . . . . .

The king himself was a perfect Saul as to height and strength; handsome in face rather than otherwise, and almost white.

He met the little party in the tent, all smiles and strange ejaculations.

He took Antonio’s hand, bent down, and spat in it, a compliment common in these islands.

Barclay hoped he wouldn’t spit in his. But the daring wee Teenie took the king to book at once.

“Oh, you nasty big king,” she cried, “what for you spit in po’ ’Tonic’s hand.”

The king heard not, but led the captain away into the darkness of the great tent, and seated him on a couch or daïs covered with mats of grass cloth, and with pillows stuffed with a species of soft grass.

The rest followed, and seated themselves as best they could.

Then slaves entered with trays of delightful fruit, and trays with red glasses, and bottles containing Indian sherbet.

Teenie began to think the king a very nice man now, and so she told him, merely adding that he must not be naughty again, else he would be sent to school to learn manners.

The king was better dressed than any of his chiefs or followers. He wore a costume that was almost Arab-like—the long white under-garment, and the belt in which pistols were stuck; the cloak of camel’s hair, only on state occasions, and the gilded turban.

“May I ask you, King,” said Barclay, “how you procured that beautiful costume?”

“Oh,” he said, “I come back from far counteree. Much fine dings dere. But, my good friend Glasseye here, he buy me one two clothes all same as dis.”

The king also wore a naked sword, half as broad again as a newspaper column, and sharp on both edges.

As he sat beside Antonio, talking, he held in his left hand a massive spear as tall as a weaver’s beam.

I must confess, however, that I never have seen a weaver’s beam, but it must, by all accounts, be a big bit of wood.

The irrepressible Teenie came softly up and stood by the king’s knee. He smiled, and gently patted her head. Then she quietly disengaged his hand, finger after finger, from the spear, which she took immediate possession of. She made a bridle from two pieces of string, then mounted her fiery wooden horse, and, laughing merrily, rode out and away, straight down the green avenue with it.

She met many savages.

They were savage no more, when they beheld that little madcap, with her merry laughing face and cheeks so rosy, making a horse of the king’s favourite spear.

This spear was in reality his sceptre, but that didn’t matter one little iota to Teenie.

Barclay Stuart, with a quaking heart, had followed his little sweetheart, as he called her, but presently lost sight of her. But she soon returned again.

“O Barclay,” she cried exultantly, “what a day I is having!”

Well, if there really was any danger to be apprehended at the hands of these cannibal savages, Teenie’s very innocence protected her therefrom.

“Oh, I is so tired, Mr. King,” she said, as she restored the spear to his majesty.

And the good-natured monarch smiled.

“Neber hab I saw,” he said, “so brave and pletty a chile befoh.”

CHAPTER VI

THE KOH-I-NOOR PEARL

. . . . . .

But now the work of pearl fishing and sponge collecting was in full swing.

There is no island in all the Pacific so rich in pearl oysters as the little-known green dot in the blue waters, to which I have given the name of St. Peter’s. If ever I myself, reader, am able to afford a yacht, it is to this island and others I know of that I shall steer, and I believe that I am long-headed enough to make it pay.

Unlike many savage islanders, King “Mlada” cared little for pearls.

He was getting up in years, he explained. His people all loved him, and he preferred to remain here till death should close his eyes. So he parted readily with the pearl treasures he had during his long reign collected. He refused to be paid in money.

“Money no good,” he said. “No can eat he.”

But beads and cloth—ah! that was in his way.

One pearl especially did Antonio covet.

Never had he seen such a gem before. It was pink, of immense size, perfectly round, and without a flaw.

Its value, Antonio knew, was so great, that only a European queen, an emperor, or a millionaire would have cared to buy it.

The king said it was found in a conch-shell far away in the Bahamas, a hundred years ago, and captured from the ship that ran aground on this very island. His great-grandfather was then king, he told Antonio.

“All de sailor kill,” he continued. “Agoo! dey make nicee food for de warriors, but dat pearl, he bes’ of all, and—dere she lie!”

The pearl had a piece of the pink shell itself attached to it. This was perfectly circular, and as large as a small saucer. From the centre rose the gorgeous gem, which Antonio believed he could sell for at least £20,000.

For a long time Mlada would not hear of parting with it. So Antonio said no more about the matter just then.

It came into his possession, however, in a very strange way indeed.

Miss Leona proved to be a young lady whose chief happiness consisted in doing good to others. She had plenty of time; and no sooner did she arrive on the island, than she set herself to study the manners, and customs, and language of the islanders.

Not being English, she picked up the language of the cannibals in two or three months. It was by no means a difficult one, but simple and sibilant, yet most expressive.

And now, while a corps of native divers were at work every day in the lagoon, gathering shells, Antonio and our young heroes often going down in the diving-bells, and heaping up piles of these; while scores of natives were busy also diving for, and extracting or digging out great sponges from coral caves and cavities, Leona began to ask herself the question, What can I do for these poor people?

She went among them almost daily when the weather was fine, and it is nearly always fine here. The natives looked upon this beautiful but sad-faced young lady, dressed all in white, as a kind of good spirit, and most of them were just a little afraid of her.

But she never went on shore without bringing little presents that she obtained from Antonio—tobacco, of which the men, curiously enough, were inordinately fond, smoking it in pretty little pipes carved from the dried hard wood they found on the island. Sometimes, however, these pipes were fashioned from coral.

The king, too, smoked an immense hubble-bubble, a present from Antonio in former years.

But Leona brought the women beads as well, and many little nicknacks fashioned by her own hands from coloured paper and cloth, such as watch-pockets, &c. These the cannibal ladies did not hang on the walls of their huts, but to their ears, half-filling them with little pink cowries to keep them steady.

As their ears were very large, and as they walked erect and stately, the ornaments never fell off.

But these were all wives of great chiefs, or those in high authority. Once Leona inadvertently gave a common cannibal’s wife a pair of these pretty pockets. Of these the woman was instantly deprived. She only sighed, and sat down in the sands to bewail her lot.

When Miss Leona came on shore, she brought Teenie with her, dressed becomingly in pink and white, and always Johnnie Smart, the fat boy, as a kind of bodyguard.

He really wasn’t much use after all, except to carry things. He would gaze around him for a few minutes wonderingly; but being incapable of taking it all in, he contented himself with turning his fat face skywards, and chuckling pleasantly to himself, the eyes of course being out of sight.

Leona’s first visit was always to the king’s tent, or rather palace.

She made him a beautiful blue smoking-cap, trimmed or embroidered with silver, and showed him how to wear it. At the same time she presented him with a hand mirror.

“Ugh!” he cried, when he looked in. “I never tink befoh I was so boo’ful. Leona, you are one good spirit.

“Dat little chubbie you’ daughter?”

“Oh no, I am not married.”

The king started up, spear in hand, and stood before her erect—six feet and six inches of cannibal king, and broad in proportion.

This was startling, and Leona was not a little frightened. What could he possibly mean?

“Be my wife,” he cried, in a conch-shell kind of voice. “Be my best wife.”

“No, no, no; pardon me, King Mlada, but I have a dear old mother, to whom I must return. Besides,” she added, “you have too many wives already. Far, far too many, sir.”

But he persisted: “De vely day you become my wife, I will call de boys all round, and cut de heads off all my oder wives, ’cept Ooeya. Den my soldier shall have one glorio feast of bukalo” (human flesh).

Leona was so shocked that she shed tears, seeing which, Teenie tried to soothe her.

The king still stood there, looking as sheepish as a very much enlarged edition of a young school-boy.

Teenie flew at him, and smacked him twice briskly on the bare arm.

“You’re a naughty naughty king,” she cried. “Go back to your seat at once, and be good.”

The king looked down and smiled. So did Johnnie Smart, in his own way.

But everything was all right from this day, and his cannibalistic majesty never mentioned marriage to Miss Leona again.

Now Ooeya was Mlada’s favourite young wife, and, with the exception of a somewhat big mouth, she really was a pretty girl.

The other wives were really little more than maids to Ooeya, and, knowing her own power, she used to make them obey her slightest behest.

The happy idea occurred to Leona, of dressing Ooeya in a more suitable and pretty costume, than the rather scanty one she at present wore.

She took her on board ship with her, and brought her back in two days.

King Mlada was in ecstasies, and pressed his wife to his breast. She was a good spirit now, he said, and “he happy, oh! so happy.”

Ooeya’s costume, however, was simplicity itself: a neat little crimson skull-cap, prettily braided and beribboned hair, a costume of white cotton, with a sash of crimson to match the cap, and a triple string of blue glass beads around her sable neck.

Just while the giant king was in this ecstatic state, Antonio and the boys came in.

The king seized him by both hands.

“See,” he cried, “see my beautiful spirit wife!”

Then he sat gravely down on the matted floor cross-legged.

“Speak me not now,” he said, and for ten minutes there was not a hush to be heard in the big, grass-built hall.

Then he slowly rose, and beckoned all to leave the hall except Antonio.

“Capitan,” he said, almost solemnly, “my friend and brudder ever you hab been.”

“Yes, Mlada.”

“You gib me much fine ding! You fight for me one time foh true!”

“I may have to fight for you again.”

“I be happy. Boys much want bukalo feast. I too—plaps. But boys love bukalo.”

“Mlada, I will not be friendly with you if you eat human flesh,” said Antonio.

“Ah! den I plefer you, capitan, to any bukalo. I lub you. I ask you maid Leona to be one wife to me; she say she not can do. I speakee her no more. She is my sistuh, she say.”

Antonio smiled, and the king went on in a more mournful voice now. “I am soon to be old. Much fight I care not for. I hab no son, no daughter, no fliend—just you. I cannot eat de big pearl.”

“No, now you can’t take it to the happy hunting-ground with you.”

“No, no. Oh no. But, capitan, I hab ten oder wife. I would lub them more if all dress like Ooeya, but not so fine. Ooeya is de youngest and best. One spirit wife is Ooeya.”

“Well,” said Antonio, “as you say, the big pearl is of no use to you when dead: I will tell you what I shall do. I will get Leona to make two dresses each for your ten wives, and I will give you a rich store of bright cloth, and a thousand beads, all for the big pearl. And, wait, I will give you something else still more marvellous. Wait, Mlada.”

He went to the door of the grass hall, and beckoned to a sailor, who came in and deposited something on a couch.

It was a storage battery, with long tube and bell light.

This last was fastened to the wall. Then Antonio invited the king to press a button. He did so. Instantly a flood of dazzling light illumined the whole hall.

For the next half minute the astonished king’s speech consisted of vowels of acclamation.

“Oo—ah—ze—ha!” and so on, so forth.

He was able to stammer forth at last: “De white man is one great wonder. He go to the sun and steal its light for poor King Mlada’s home. Good, good man you!”

He started up as he spoke, and going to a huge iron chest, inserted a key, and brought forth the paper box which contained the splendid pearl.

“It is you’s, best fliend mine. You’s for eber and eber.”

Antonio clasped his hands, and, as he did so, he descried tears in the giant’s eyes, so for a time he did not ask him to speak.

But that light was kept up for three days and nights in the king’s hall, and then the captain recharged it.

. . . . . .

When the dresses were all completed, I don’t think there was a happier king in heathendom than His Majesty the Emperor Mlada, as Antonio called him.

CHAPTER VII

LEONA AND THE ISLANDERS

Our young heroes were permitted to keep all the pearls they found, and many were very valuable.

But diving was not unattended with danger, for in the lagoon were not only sharks—huge and awful monsters—but great, ungainly, horrid alligators.

Somehow they never dared attack the boys or Antonio in the diver’s dress.

The savages used to dive together in parties of six to ten, and they were then unmolested by the tigers of the sea.

One day a young brave, probably to give himself éclat with the pretty, dark-skinned maidens who stood watching on the beach, took his spear and dived alone.

Two minutes slipped away. He came not to the surface, but dark red blood and bubbles soon rose up and revealed his fate—torn in pieces by sharks or alligators.

This episode was soon forgotten.

The girls grinned and laughed.

“Plenty good ’gator,” one said who had learned a little English. “Plenty good ’gator.[9] I lubee he. He one good man—he lub de bukalo feast. Num! num! num!”

And she licked the back of her hand with a species of cannibalistic frenzy that made Barclay Stuart shudder.

Some of these interesting maidens smiled and pointed to the boys, and even nodded to them.

“They’ve fallen in love with you,” said Antonio, smiling.

Antonio was not half so weird-looking now that he had discharged that uncanny eye.

“In love,” cried Barclay; “I would not sweetheart one of those girls for all the gold in Queensland.”

“Oh,” continued Antonio, “that isn’t the kind of love they love you with. They want to broil and eat you, dearie.”

. . . . . .

Months went on; the sponges collected on the sea beach were tied to sticks in the sand at low water, in thousands. When the tide was high it washed them; when low, the sun bleached them; and so all the innumerable animalculæ that dwelt in their cells soon decayed and washed away.

As soon as they were thoroughly dry and clean, they were taken off to the ship in boats.

. . . . . .

But during all these months Leona had not been idle. Her heart bled to think that these poor benighted savages should never have heard the history of the world, as mythically revealed in the Book of Books.

She determined to tell them this story, and the better and happier story that followed—the story of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

She hired natives to build a church on a hillside, with great open windows in it that looked far out over the lone blue sea. The church was entirely composed of palm leaves woven together, and supported on bamboo poles. There was squatting room for five hundred.

Leona’s sermons were simplicity itself, and couched in the language of the islanders.

She told of the fall of man after the creation of the world, of the gradual peopling of the earth, of the promises of salvation held out to God’s people through the mouths of His prophets, and last of all of the coming of the gentle Saviour to this weary, sinful world—of His humble birth, His boyhood, His wondrous work, and His awful death on the cross, from the time He was nailed up until His gentle spirit was wafted away with the ever-memorable words, “’Tis finished.”

Her prayers were most earnest and touching, and many of her humble listeners wept aloud. Antonio himself conducted the music. The little man was clever, and had translated many of our most beautiful paraphrases into the island language; and these, wedded to lovely old tunes like Martyrdom or London New, seemed to go straight away to the hearts of these simple savages, and stir up feelings such as they had never before experienced.

The paraphrase I think which affected them more than most others, perhaps I may be allowed here to transcribe. It is founded on the seventh chapter of Revelation, from verse 13 to the end. It had been feelingly translated by Antonio, who touched the guitar, as he sung—

CHAPTER VIII

INVASION BY SAVAGES—FEARFUL FIGHTING

Leona still continued her sermons to the people, and incalculable was the good these had already done.

Especially severe too had she been on the awful habit of devouring human flesh. Indeed, it is not too much to say that in these ten short months she had converted a cannibal island into a Christian community.

So earnest was Leona in the work which she really believed God had given her to perform.

. . . . . .

The pearl-fishery and sponge-bleaching still continued. In order to take up as little room as possible on board, the dried sponges were packed in bales and weighted down.

But the valuable pearls, especially the pearl which was a fortune in itself, were stowed away in a small fire-proof safe in the captain’s cabin.

WHAT WAS ANTONIO GARCIA’s REAL CHARACTER?

This is a question which the reader may have already asked himself. It is a question that myself and mess-mates of H.M.S. P—— often asked ourselves and each other, when first we made the weird little man’s acquaintance in the city of Bombay.

We met him by accident, and could not help being struck with not only his erudition and scientific knowledge, but his strange weird manner, and the glamour of his mysterious glass eye. That he had a history we felt sure—a history and a past. So we, at his own invitation, went often to see him.

He lived in a bungalow in the outskirts, that is, beyond the site of the old walls. But the little man, and his Mahratta servants also, always went armed with dagger and revolver. He laughingly explained to us that he went in daily danger and fear of his life; for that, as far as he was concerned, he said, he cared nothing, but the happiness of others dear to him was bound up in his.

We knew too that he was in haste to amass wealth. We found out that he was doing so on the Stock Exchange, or by speculation.

There was then a great company started, for the purpose of reclaiming some miles of the shallow sea around Bombay. Antonio was much taken with the scheme, and bought heavily of the shares at par. They mounted up to a wondrous price; and one night, so he told us, he had a dream. Some thing, or creature, covered with slime and seaweed, crawled up out of the sea, and thrice repeated a warning to Antonio, anent the Ocean Reclamation Company.

Next day Antonio sold out, and only just in time, for a week or two after, the bubble burst. Perhaps Antonio Garcia and the promoters of the scheme were the only persons who had profited thereby.

But the questions remained. What was the meaning of the man, so to speak? Was he a wizard or a sorcerer—his powers of hypnotism were very great—or was he mad? Why his haste to amass wealth?

Again, we could not help noticing his great influence over the lower animals. Whence this magic power that caused even the birds of the air, and smaller beasts of the jungle, to come at his call, and even feed from his hands?

While out walking—and he used to walk a deal—I have never met him without seeing a pigeon or two, or gulls flying tack and half tack close around him.

Again, he was ever trying to do good to those around him, even to little Hindoo children. Was he sincere?

This question we had to answer by asking another: Would birds, and beasts, and children have loved him so had he not been sincere?

Something else we could not help noticing: every forenoon a tall and handsome Mahommedan, dressed outwardly in a long green cloak of camel’s hair, used to call at Antonio’s bungalow, leaving his sandals on the doorstep. (We never went in when we saw the sandals.) This reverend, patriarchal-looking old man was a real scion of the prophet, and used to teach Antonio both Hebrew and Sanscrit.

But this was another mystery. I remember that in our mess we summed Antonio up thus: He is either a sincerely pious and good man, as he appears to be, or he is working towards some mysterious end, and is in league with the Evil One.

Reader, I should be giving myself away were I to unravel the mystery now.

. . . . . .

Life on the island and on the sweet blue sea around it had become very delightful now.

Strange that our religion should be capable of remoulding even the heart of a savage and cannibal. But so indeed it is.

Perhaps, though, never was the Gospel preached with more earnestness, or gentle and sweet persuasiveness, than that which fell from the tongue of Leona.

There was no rant, no cant. It was all commonsense. It was heart appealing to heart, therefore it was effectual.

But now, alas! the character of my story—through no fault of mine—must change in a moment almost from that of peace to wild war.

My clansman, the good and great General Gordon, who was slain at Khartoum, used to say that war was a weapon of Jehovah Himself, and that we poor blind worms, crawling on this earth below, must not question the goodness of the Being who made us all.

Well, reader, we will know everything in good time; all we have got to remember now is, that our minds are but finite, and we see darkly and dimly. “Who by searching shall find out God?” Man never shall nor can in this world.

But not to digress: the woodland scenery of the island was enchanting, either on hill or plain. True, there were a few snakes in the woods, but our heroes never meddled with them. Sometimes a beautiful green thing, like the thong of a whip, would depend from the branch of a tree, or one would wobble out from a bunch of bananas; only they were more frightened than our boys themselves, and always dropped down and fled.

There was also a long thin snake, called the fire-serpent, of which the natives were terribly afraid. It was of a bright crimson colour, and very lovely.

Once one shot itself half out from a tree-fern stem, and hissed in Barclay’s face.

It did not strike. Had it done so, poor Barclay Stuart would have dropped out of this story.

There were very many different kinds of lizards. One was the eyed-lizard, green with yellow spots, very lovely—tame, too, to a degree. Davie Drake captured one in his handkerchief and took it off to the ship. It grew to a length of eighteen inches, and was never happier than when being made cosy, and cuddled by little Teenie.

Pussy took to it also; but the very sight of it caused the monkeys to scream with fear, and shake and tremble like leaves of the linn.[10] Well, now that there was no danger to be apprehended from the savages, Teenie always accompanied the boys on their natural history expeditions; and always came back laden with wild flowers, and never without orange blossom.

Johnnie Smart went also to carry luncheon; and much indeed this last was enjoyed, while the party were seated high up on a wooded brae perhaps, or close by the side of some purling stream, where silvery fishes used to be seen leaping up out of the pools in sheer wantonness, regardless that their enemies, the rainbow king-fishers, were darting hither and thither among the green boughs.

They seldom took luncheon on the beach, because of the alligators. These loathsome monsters not only lay basking on the coral sand, but even swam long distances out to sea.

Well, one day, or rather early one morning, our heroes and little heroine had gone to a distant part of the island after some strange curios.

All at once they sighted the beach. To their horror they found it covered with at least 500 swift canoes. Probably a thousand warriors also lined the beach. They were arrayed in all the ghastly panoply of savage warfare, and were lying at ease in all positions, but close to their guns and spears.

The presence of our young people in the wood adjoining was speedily perceived, and a dozen warriors immediately started to give chase. Only fleetness of foot could now save our boys and little Teenie. They took to the thickest part of the wood—Barclay Stuart, who was very strong for his age, carrying Teenie.

The warriors never overtook them. But, alas for poor Johnnie Smart! Fat lads are no good in active service, and Johnnie was made prisoner.

His fate would be sealed, and that night or next morning the savages would have a bukalo feast.

They came from a distant isle, and were a fierce, implacable tribe called the Wah-Poolas.

Our boys were soon at the king’s house, where luckily they found Antonio.

Instant action must be taken; so all hands were summoned, and the king’s best soldiers, in two hours’ time, were ready for the war-path.

It was determined that they should attack the invaders from the woods, while Antonio’s armed boats, with riflemen and war-rockets, should sweep round the point and attack them from the sea.

As for poor, unfortunate Johnnie Smart, with his innocent ways and fat laughing face, his doom would soon be sealed.

In fact these Wah-Poola cannibals would have him for supper, garnished with the fragrant leaves of a kind of bay-tree plentifully to be found in the forest.

Everything was well managed and well timed. Mlada the king, armed with his terrible spear, was to conduct the land forces, and the attack would be made simultaneously, the signal being the firing of a gun from the boats.

By twelve o’clock the forces were on the move towards the sea, and at one the awful conflict began.

But shortly after rounding a green promontory, the five well-armed boats of the Zingara came upon a dreadful scene.

On a rock, in-shore, blazed a fierce and brightly burning fire of wood. Advancing towards this was at least two hundred demoniacal warriors. They were black and awful; and as they marched they chanted some wild, unearthly kind of song, varied by shrill screams, while they waved aloft their guns and spears, and bent their naked bodies to and fro, and from side to side.

Suspended between two forked sticks, and held high aloft, was a strong bamboo, fully seven feet long.

Underneath this, with pinioned hands and legs, and tied to the bamboo by cords, hung the unfortunate fat boy.

It was evident he was alive, although doubtless soon to be murdered.

This party must be attacked first, at all hazards.

The boats are now well round the point. In their blind frenzy the cannibals have not seen them, nor do they, till a terrible war-rocket goes tearing through their ranks, followed by another, and still another.

For a moment they scatter in confusion across the beach, but quickly reform en masse. Twenty at least of their number lie dead on the coral sands, that are dyed with their blood.

Forming in close columns was the worst formation they could have adopted.

For now the rifles of Antonio’s men play awful havoc in their ranks.

The bearers of the poor, unhappy, fat boy have made for the bush with him. Presently, however, they emerge without their burden, and a company of Mlada’s men follow speedily after, with loud cries for vengeance.

Quickly, now, after firing one other volley, the sailors sweep onwards to the shore, and assist with revolver and bayonet in the dreadful tulzie.

It is indeed a wild and fearsome fight, but in the end the enemy are beaten. They are beaten, they are surrounded, and—awful to say, annihilated.

No mercy, no quarter is given, even to the wounded.

But this is, after all, but the introduction to the pitched battle that follows.

For quickly now, along the silver sands, where the blue sea is breaking and singing in long, white, curling lines, comes the main body.

From the boats, war-rockets considerably disconcert the savages, but they are not to be denied.

With wild slogan and shout, the horrid horde rushes on.

CHAPTER IX

A FLEET OF THE DEAD

But nothing could stem their wild rush. Once, indeed, they paused for a minute or two to fire a volley.

Antonio’s men, seeing their intention, threw themselves flat on the ground just as they took aim, and the bullets from those Brummagem rifles went harmlessly whistling through the air.

The savages now threw down their guns, apparently determined to end the fight with club and spear and sword.

Again their wild slogans rent the air; once more a telling volley was fired; once more two rockets tore through their ranks. Then Antonio, knowing the futility of standing up with so small a force against six hundred demons incarnate, quickly gave the order, and he and his men disappeared in the bush.

Here, protected from the spears that might be hurled against them, they could fire from behind every tree.

They had only time, however, to fire one good volley, when the chief of the invading savages seemed to give orders for his wild warriors to take the bush, even in face of Antonio’s deadly, though desultory fire.

But, see, a dark cloud has suddenly appeared in the rear of the enemy. It is the king and his men, who have emerged from the bush.

Indecision marks the conduct of the invading savages now.

Another war-rocket comes roaring from the boats, another, and still another follows.

One more withering volley is fired from the bush.

Then Antonio, waving his sword aloft, shouts—

“Now, brave boys! Now is our time. Fix bayonets. At them with the steel. Charge!”

They did charge with a true British cheer, and with true British vim.

Those bayonets made terrible havoc in the enemy’s ranks, so did Antonio’s sword, and the revolvers of our young heroes.

Hard would it have gone, however, with Antonio’s men, had not at the most critical moment—for Antonio himself had tripped and fallen, and a hulking savage was kneeling on his breast, shortening his assegai to stab him—the king’s men rushed on to the combat.

The savage kneeling on Antonio, Davie Drake complacently shot.

He leapt up, and falling back against another, brought him to the ground. Before he could recover, a ball from Barclay’s six-shooter relieved him of the trouble of ever getting up again.

The fighting between the king’s men and the invaders now became desperate—terrible.

The sickening thuds of the death-dealing clubs, the cracking of revolvers, the shouts and screams and cries of agony, are all too difficult to describe graphically.

The foe was beaten at last, not without loss on the side of the king, while Antonio had three men slain and ten wounded, more or less severely.

Among the latter was Barclay himself, who had received a spear wound through the shoulder.

As in all savage warfare, the enemy was completely wiped out—not a man of the invading force was left alive.

Antonio was to all intents and purposes a skilled surgeon, if not physician, and he now had not only his own wounded, but those of the king, carefully conveyed to the village huts, after their wounds had been temporarily seen to.

Barclay was carefully attended by his friend Davie Drake. The boy refused to go on board for the present. The pain of his wound, however, was so intense that he seemed to writhe in agony. No one had fought more bravely than Davie; but now as he beheld the sufferings of his dearest friend, the tears rolled over his face, and he made no attempt to check them either.

But Antonio was nothing unless original in his ideas.

Fearing, then, that the king’s people would be tempted to renew their cannibalism, he requested him to withdraw his men entirely, and encamp them around his own palace, leaving him, Antonio, a free hand to deal with the enemy’s dead.

He despatched a boat and twenty men to bring round the ship.

This they speedily did, and there was still three hours of daylight to complete the operations he had in hand.

It was a strange idea.

He might have buried the invaders’ dead in the bush; but cannibals will dig men out of their graves, to feast on their flesh.

He explained his intentions to the two mates.

“Capital,” said Webber, smiling.

“Bedad,” said the second mate, “it’s the foinest plan ever I heard tell of for many’s the day.”

There was a good breeze blowing from the east and south, and a strong current running north towards the very islands whence the invaders had come in their little boats. As speedily as possible these were now laden up with the dead, and fastened together by ropes. Then sail was set, and a quarter of this dead-laden flotilla was towed out, and cast off in the current. Antonio was delighted to see this awesome fleet move slowly northwards.

Back they came again and again; and just as the sun was rapidly westering, the last of the boats, with the mangled remains of the enemy, were cast adrift in the ocean currents.

They had left in health and glee, to destroy, as they thought they would, an old enemy, and capture his island, his chattels, his goods, his wives and children. But—terrible retribution—canoe after canoe would strike their islands, and bear to their very doors their sadly mangled corpses.

The dead of the king’s men were next buried.