They found the break in the reef and entered the lagoon on the swell of the incoming tide. The level rays of the newly risen sun lit the white beach down to which trooped the trees—breadfruit and pendanus, artus and cocoa palms—overshot with flights of colored birds and whispered to by the morning wind.
On the beach where ten-inch waves were falling, half a dozen natives stood watching the oncoming boats, and now from a frame house half hidden in the grove to the right came the figure of a tall old man, a European, dressed in white clothes and carrying a gun resting on the crook of his arm.
The people of the island showed no sign of welcome to the newcomers, and as the boats beached they drew off to the right and stood silent, observant, and without motion in the shade of the trees.
“Friendly crowd,” said the mate. “Guess they don’t like whalers. Now, boys, out with the axes and look lively. Follow me, and you, Brown, stick to the boats and see those Kanakas don’t get handling the gear. If you have any trouble give a blow on this whistle.”
He handed over the whistle and, leading the axmen, walked up the beach and vanished in the woods.
Brown was the name Lygon was known by on the Sarah Dodsley .
Lygon had made his plan even as they were crossing the lagoon. He had expected to be among the woodcutters and he had planned to escape the moment they were among the trees. The post of boat tender made the thing more difficult, for the island crowd, headed by the old man with the gun, were watching him and seemingly with no friendly eyes.
He was not a moment in making up his mind. Leaving the boats to look after themselves, he walked up the burning white beach toward the Kanakas. As he came he noticed that the old man shifted his hold on the gun.
Within speaking distance he halted.
“What is it you want?” asked the man with the gun. He spoke with a French accent and Lygon, close to him, now took heart. Here was a man of his own class, a fine type of Frenchman, upstanding for all his years, and with a level, open gaze that compelled trust from all but the untrustworthy.