But Grief no longer heard. Through the trees, from the direction of the harbour, came a rattle of rifles, and he started on the run for the beach. Pirates from Tahiti and convicts from New Caledonia! A pretty bunch of desperadoes that even now was attacking his schooner. Hare-Lip followed, still spluttering and spitting his tale of the white devils' doings.
The rifle-firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but Grief ran on, perplexed by ominous conjectures, until, in a turn of the path, he encountered Mauriri running toward him from the beach.
“Big Brother,” the Goat Man panted, “I was too late. They have taken your schooner. Come! For now they will seek for you.”
He started back up the path away from the beach.
“Where is Brown?” Grief demanded.
“On the Big Rock. I will tell you afterward. Come now!”
“But my men in the whaleboat?”
Mauriri was in an agony of apprehension.
“They are with the women on the strange schooner. They will not be killed. I tell you true. The devils want sailors. But you they will kill. Listen!” From the water, in a cracked tenor voice, came a French hunting song. “They are landing on the beach. They have taken your schooner—that I saw. Come!”