CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I | A Christmas Bounty | [11] |
| II | A Whale Hunt | [20] |
| III | C. B.’s Childhood | [32] |
| IV | Evil from Without | [46] |
| V | Entertaining Devils Unaware | [60] |
| VI | C. B.’s Departure | [75] |
| VII | C. B. justifies his Position | [90] |
| VIII | Treachery and its Consequences | [105] |
| IX | The Great Catch | [120] |
| X | A Gam and a Revenge | [135] |
| XI | The Story of a Crime | [150] |
| XII | C. B.’s Great Temptation | [166] |
| XIII | C. B.’s Narrowest Escape | [182] |
| XIV | A Momentous Passage | [198] |
| XV | Farewell to the Ship | [214] |
| XVI | Popularity | [229] |
| XVII | A Troublesome Appreciation | [244] |
| XVIII | A Hero in Spite of Himself | [259] |
| XIX | C. B.’s Awakening | [274] |
| XX | C. B.’s Task Concludes | [289] |
| XXI | Marriage and Departure | [305] |
| XXII | Back to Primitive Things | [320] |
| XXIII | Saved from the Sea | [336] |
| XXIV | Home at Last | [351] |
CHAPTER I A Christmas Bounty
Fifty years ago, in a primitive but comfortable house situated in one of the fairest spots that this world can show, a group of men and women were holding a prayer meeting. An unobserved listener who had been accustomed to such gatherings elsewhere would have been at once impressed by the perfect naturalness of these people, in that not one of them behaved differently from how we should expect a happy family to act in the presence of their parents while one of them was relating some interesting experience. There was no self-conscious posing for effect, no making of long prayers composed of meaningless repetitions with an occasional verse of Scripture or of a hymn thrown in for effect, no unnatural groaning or shouting, all was quiet, sweet, and delightful.
But truly, never did a body of Christians exercise their privileges under more heavenly conditions upon this earth. Through the open sides of the house could be seen in one direction a delectable stretch of pasture land interspersed with graceful trees and edged by dazzlingly white sand, beyond which lay a vast sapphire space flecked with snowy-topped wavelets, whose diamond spray glittered rejoicingly under the glowing beams of the fervent sun. In the opposite direction tree-clad hills sprang from emerald meadows and cultivated land, soaring upward until the fleecy cloud forms kissed their summits lovingly as they gently glided past, flecking the smiling verdure beneath with patches of softest shade and thus enhancing the beauty of the picture.
Yes, it was a fair spot to the eye, as any one who knows Norfolk Island can testify, but that to the worshippers was not the greatest of their many blessings. Time had been, and that not long before, when this earthly paradise was polluted and degraded by the presence of the very dregs of humanity, the lees of the convict settlements of New South Wales; and it would be hard to say which was worst, the crimes for which they were being punished, or the nameless horrors to which they were subjected in excess of legal punishment. Happily that evil blot had been removed from the lovely island, and now it was peopled by a tiny community of less than two hundred, who were, it is safe to say, quite near attainment of the heavenly state on earth, and consequently were as happy as it is possible for man to be while bearing about with him the body of physical death.
Here the worship of God, free from any idea of form or ceremony, was as natural to all as their ordinary conversation. Crime and vice were unknown as was wealth, possessions were practically held in common, sickness and disease and their necessary concomitant the doctor had no place, and a spirit of idyllic simplicity reigned, of sweet contentment and peace such as has never been known elsewhere in any other community whatever.