"Two hours out from Tahiti, inward bound."
"How! What! When!" etc.; and my mind ran up and down the record of the last fortnight, finding many blots and some blanks.
"As soon as I got into my right mind I could hear all about it"; and the captain shook his bottle, and held on to the side of my bunk to save himself from total wreck in the lee-corners of the cabin.
"Why, wasn't I right-minded? I could tell a hawk from a hernshaw; and, speaking of hawks, where was that cursed owl?"
The captain concluded I was bettering, and put the physic into the locker, so as to give his whole attention to keeping right side up. Well, this is how it happened, as I afterward learned: The Great Western suffered somewhat from the gale at Motu Hilo, though she was comparatively sheltered in that inner sea. Having repaired, and given me up as a deserter, she sailed for Tahiti. The first day out, in a light breeze, they all saw a man apparently wading up to his middle in the sea. The fellow hailed the Great Western, but as she could hardly stand up against the rapid current in so light a wind, the captain let her drift past the man in the sea, who suddenly disappeared. A consultation of officers followed. Evidently some one was cast away and ought to be looked after; resolved to beat up to the rock, big turtle, or whatever it might be that kept that fellow afloat, provided the wind freshened sufficiently; wind immediately freshened; Great Western put about and made for the spot where Hua Manu had been seen hailing the schooner. But when that schooner passed he threw himself upon the sand beside me and gave up hoping at last, and was seen no more.
What did he then? I must have asked for drink. He gave it me from an artery in his wrist, severed by the finest teeth you ever saw. That's what saved me. On came the little schooner, beating up against the wind and tide, while I had my lips sealed to that fountain of life.
The skipper kept banging away with an old blunderbuss that had been left over in his bargains with the savages, and one of these explosions caught the ears of Hua. He tore my lips from his wrist, staggered to his feet, and found help close at hand. Too late they gathered us up out of the deep and strove to renew our strength. They transported us to the little cabin of the schooner, Hua Manu, myself, and that mincing owl, and swung off into the old course. Probably the Great Western never did better sailing since she came from the stocks than that hour or two of beating that brought her up to the shoal. She seemed to be emulating it in the home run, for we went bellowing through the sea in a stiff breeze and the usual flood-tide on deck.
I lived to tell the tale. I should think it mighty mean of me not to live after such a sacrifice. Hua Manu sank rapidly. I must have nearly drained his veins, but I don't believe he regretted it. The captain said when he was dying, his faithful eyes were fixed on me. Unconsciously I moved a little; he smiled, and the soul went out of him in that smile, perfectly satisfied. At that moment the owl fled from the cabin, passed through the hatchway, and disappeared.
Hua Manu lay on the deck, stretched under a sail, while I heard this. I wondered if a whole cargo of pearls could make me indifferent to his loss. I wondered if there were many truer and braver than he in Christian lands. They call him a heathen. It was heathenish to offer up his life vicariously. He might have taken mine so easily, and perhaps have breasted the waves back to his own people, and been fêted and sung of as the hero he truly was.
Well, if he is a heathen, out of my heart I would make a parable, its rubric bright with his sacrificial blood, its theme this glowing text: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend."