These were sprinkled with salt and various kinds of pepper, placed on hot stones over the fire, and covered with fragrant wet leaves. They were soon done to a turn. So were yams and sweet potatoes. Then Creggan asked a blessing, and all declared that they had never eaten a more delightful breakfast in their lives.
By and by a strange kind of chant was heard coming nearer and nearer to the village, and presently the plash of paddles.
Lo! the dug-outs had arrived. So, bidding their kind host and hostess adieu, after filling the children's hands with sweets, they lowered themselves into the canoes and were quickly paddled on shore.
They reached their own ship that forenoon in safety, much delighted with all they had seen and heard, and now, business being transacted, steam was got up, and the Osprey went heading away for far northern China seas.
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The letters from home which last mail had brought Creggan were very delightful reading, especially those from Daddy the hermit, from his mother, and little Matty Nugent. Nugent's own letter brought him sad enough news, however, to the effect that poor M'Ian the minister had been borne to his long home by his loving parishioners, and that all that country-side of Skye was plunged in grief.
Mrs. M'Ian and her children, Rory and Maggie, had gone to reside in Perth for the better education of the latter. Maggie, or Sister Maggie, wrote a sad little letter to Creggan—it was really blurred with tears, and grief was en evidence throughout every page of it.
The voyage to Chinese and Japanese waters was a very long but somewhat uneventful one. It took them westward through Torres Straits first, then across the bright and beautiful Sea of Arafura, all dotted with little green-fringed islands hung like emeralds on the horizon. Next, across the Sea of Banda, and so away and away past Molucca and Gilolo, till they skirted the Philippine Isles, Formosa, and Loo-choo, then they were indeed in Chinese waters.
But no storm or tempest had marred the pleasure of this almost idyllic voyage, and they reached Shanghai in safety.
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