"De big one, sah, wid de woolly head an' eyes so."
He tried to squint.
"Ah, that chap! I noticed him, and I took his measure."
Then, little by little, he drew out the whole story. It had been a bad voyage for the Southern Cross. They had been recruiting down in the Solomon Islands, and the recruiter, Markham by name, had been nearly cut off.
He had adopted the usual methods, landing on the beach with a box of trade goods and without any weapons, while a covering boat hung offshore to protect him in case of attack.
The natives had seemed friendly, but all at once they had drawn off, scattering toward the bush, from where next moment had come a flight of their deadly spears, one of which had pierced Markham's arm. With the spear still in his arm, he had managed to get off, and under protection of the fire from the covering boat had succeeded in reaching the schooner. The spear had been cut out, or, rather, cut off at the barb and drawn out, but the wound had bothered him a lot.
The thirty natives he had managed to secure before the business suffered a good bit at his hand in return for it. The captain and the mates had not been behindhand; some of the crew had run away, and the schooner was shorthanded; that did not add to their good temper. They tried to make the Solomon Islanders help in the working of the vessel, but these gentry had not engaged themselves for ship work, but plantation work, and they said so. The captain had booted some of them and threatened to shoot others, and generally the schooner seemed to have been a hard ship. There seemed the distinct evidence of a trail of drink over the whole business, and the upshot was death for the afterguard.
Death dealt with belaying pins and an ax wielded by the woolly-headed individual with the squint.
Two natives had been shot dead on the spot, one had been wounded, and had died of his wounds. Then the decks had been swabbed, and the precious crew, without a navigating officer or the faintest notion of their exact position, had made sail, or, rather, made a fair wind that was blowing, trusting to chance to take them somewhere.
They had touched the skirt of the big storm, but they managed to weather it, and, seeing the island in sight, had made for it.