CHAPTER X
MURDER AND SHIPWRECK
We found the island in a state of excitement. Two whaleships had arrived, bringing half a dozen white men, and who had a retinue of nearly a hundred natives from Ocean and Pleasant Islands. The white men had to leave Pleasant Island on account of a general engagement which had taken place ; had fled to the ships for safety, taking with them their native wives, families, and adherents. The other men were from Ocean Island, a famine having set in from drought in that lovely isle. They had also taken passage with their native following, to seek a more temporarily favoured spot. The fertility of Kusaie (Strong's Island) had decided them to remain.
Strange characters, in truth, were these same traders, now all quartered at Chabral harbour! They were not without means, and so far had conducted themselves de- cently. But their retinue of savage warriors had struck terror into the hearts of the milder natives of Kusaie.
Let me draw from the life one of the patriarchs of the movement, on the occasion of his embarkation.
Ocean Island, lat. 50' south, long. 168 east.
A fantastic, lonely, forbidding-looking spot. Circular in form, with rounded summit, and a cruel upheaved coral coast, split up into ravines running deep into the land. Here and there, on ledges overlooking the sea, are perched tiny villages, inhabited by as fierce and intractable a race
