8d]
once in five years. It's a very isolated spot, off the north-鑑st coast
of New Guinea. "Bully" Hayes used to call there once. However, let me
have him.The Mindora may go to Manila next year; if so, I'll land him
at On阛ta on our way there. Anyway, he's no good to you. And he told me
just now that he has been waiting his chance to murder you.'
The Mindora returned to Apia to take in stores, and Von Hammer took
Ridan with him, clothed in a suit of blue serge, and with silent
happiness illumininghis face. For his heart was leaping within him at
the thought of On阛ta, and of those who numbered him with the dead; and
when he clambered up the ship'sside and saw Pulu, the big Samoan,
working on deck with the other native sailors, he flung his arms
around him and gave him a mighty hug, and laughedlike a pleased child
when Von Hammer told him thatPulu would be his shipmate till he saw
the green land and white beach of On阛ta once more.
* * * * *
Six months out from Samoa the Mindora was hove-to off Choiseul
Island,in the Solomon Group, waiting for her boat. Von Hammer and four
hands had gone ashore to land supplies for a trader, and the brig was
awaiting his return. There was a heavy sea running on the reef as the
boat pushed off from the beach in the fast-gathering darkness; but who
minds such thingswith a native crew? So thought Von Hammer as he
grasped the long, swaying steer oar, and swung the whale-boat's head
to the white line of surf. 'Give it to her, boys; now's our
chance--there's a bit of a lull now, eh, Pulu? Bend to it, Ridan,
mylad.'
Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Ridan bow-oar, and two sturdy,
square-built Savage Islanders amidships. Surge after surge roared and
hissed past in the darkness, and never a dropof water wetted their
naked backs; and then, with a wild cry from the crew and a shouting
laughfrom the steersman, she swept over and down the edge of the reef
and gained the deep water--a second too late! Ere she could rise from
the blackened trough a great curling roller towered highover, and then
with a bursting roar fell upon andsmothered her. When she rose to the
surface Von Hammer was fifty feet away, clinging to the steer-oar. A
quick glance showed him that none of the crew were missing--they were
all holding on to the swamped boat and 'swimming' her out away from
the reef, and shouting loudly for him to come alongside. Pushing the
steer-oar before him, he soon reached the boat, and, despite his own
unwillingness, his crew insisted on his getting in. Then, each still
grasping the gunwale with one hand, they worked the boat out yard by
yard, swaying her fore and aft whenever a lull in the seascame, and
jerking the water out of her by degrees till the two Savage Islanders
were ableto clamber in and bale out with the wooden bucket slung under
the after-thwart, while the white man kept her head to the sea. But
the current was setting them steadily along, parallel with the reef,
and every now and then a sea would tumble aboard and nearly fill her
again. At last, however, theSavage Islanders got her somewhat free of
water, and called to Pulu and Ridan to get in--there were plenty of
spare canoe-paddles secured along the sides in case of an emergency
such as this.
'Get in, Pulu, get in,' said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; 'get in quickly.'
But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he
said, and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth
man. This was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awfulrisk
the men ran, and urged them to jump in andpaddle, yet knew that the
additional weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death
to all, for every now and thena leaping sea would again fill the boat
to the thwarts.
And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers
on the reef, Ridan raised his voice in an awful shriek.
' Quick! Pulu, quick! Some shark hav' come. Get in, get in first,' he
said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale
with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of
the water, and a bubbling, groan-like soundissued from his lips.
In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von
Hammer called to Ridan toget in also.
'Nay, oh, white man!' he answered, in a strange choking voice, 'let me
stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But
paddle, paddle... quickly!'
In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Ridan's
voice was heard.
'Lift me in,' he said quietly, 'my strength is spent.'
:->/ - - - :-> Transtors:
1.http://free-translation.imtranslator.net/lowres.asp
2.http://translate.google.com/m?twu=1&hl=en&vi=m&sl=auto&tl=en
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