"Lying on the floor, as we had been, the explosion, far from doing us injury, in the stiff jolt it gave our battered frames only hastened our return to consciousness. Loveworth was the first to slip the napkins which bound his wrists. Dazed as he was, the good chap yet had the presence of mind to make the three of us who were still tied promise to refrain from murdering Boraki and his fellows before he would assist us in freeing our bonds. To hold the mates to their promises, once their hands were free to rove over the swelling mounds that marked the spots where the pirate's hard-swung water bottle had fallen, was a more difficult matter. They helped me truss up the henchmen and release the sailors, but enlisting them in actual relief work was a task so well nigh hopeless that Loveworth gave it up in despair after a few minutes of entreaty and began alone. It was the muffled gurglings and convulsive wrigglings set going by his first tug at the iron plug that finally brought the belligerents into line, they scenting in the vigorous application of 'first aid' measures a possible means of accomplishing their end without bringing about an open rupture with the missionary, to whom they were greatly devoted. Considering the zeal with which they set about their errand of mercy, and their manner of wielding the tools in the delicate operation of chipping Boraki's head out of the iron hat, there was no difficulty in locating the source of the fugitive Makatean's spike-driving story.
"One of the king's first questions after he had been informed that it was the Gate of Hell that had swung on him was, not unnaturally, as to whether or not the Gate swung very often like that, and, if it did, when the next swinging was likely to occur. When he was told that this was only a special swinging directly occasioned by his shameless treachery, and that, anyhow, the danger was one that never threatened good Christians, he was silent for a space, and then asked, with apparent irrelevance, what had become of the green bottles.
"'Gone to——' began the mate in an angry roar, the realization of an almost personal loss suddenly assailing him—'the other side of the Gate,' gently concluded the Reverend Horatio after checking the obstreperous Australian's threatened outburst of profanity with an upraised hand.
"'Then teach me and my people how to remain on this side of the Gate,' gasped Boraki hoarsely, as he sank back with a shiver among the silk sofa cushions which supported his battered frame.
"So it came to pass that when the king had rested for a while we put the Crown and Anchor banner of the Missionary Society in his hands, propped him up in the stern sheets of the starboard lifeboat with one of his faithful henchmen on either side, and sent him ashore, rowed by a volunteer crew of the least hurt of the sailors.
"'Tell your people,' shouted Loveworth as the boat gained headway under a lengthening stroke, 'that you have come back from the Gate of Hell to help me guide them out of the darkness into the light and to life everlasting. If they are ready to accept the teaching, hoist the flag in front of your council house.'
"Boraki heard and nodded vigorously with the gory cylinder that served him as a head.
"The referendum was accomplished in record time, for in less than five minutes from the moment the boat touched the beach we saw a man dart out of a side portal of Boraki's palm-leaf palace and run like mad to the foot of the lopped-off coconut tree that stood before the long turtle-backed council house. With straining eyes, we saw him clamber, monkey-like, up the lofty stump, caught the flashes of a furiously-swung hammer, and then, snapping exultantly in the whistling south-east Trade, the flag of the golden Crown and Anchor streamed out from the official flag-pole of Makatea. The people had made their choice.
"No sooner was his beloved banner out to the breeze than Loveworth, taking with him the disgusted second mate, put off for the beach in the whaleboat to catch at its flood the tide of fortune which had at last begun to set so strongly in his favour. The mate and I went below to take stock of the wreck in the cabin.
"'S'elp me Father Neptune, I'd give a month's pay to the new mission to know what it was that knocked them bloomin' pirates into the shape we woke up to find 'em in,' said the mate musingly, sinking down with a sigh of relief upon the undisturbed cushions of a port transom. 'P'raps they took liberties with a bunch o' rockets or a keg o' powder; only there ain't no fire marks nowhere. All the booze smashed up, too. Wonder who's at the bottom of it, anyhow. Eh! What? Who spoke? You, Capt'n? No. Oh, you, old Tinhorn. My word, but you gave me a turn. "God," you sez. That's what Pilot Loveworth sez, too, and p'raps it's true; but what gets me is how He done it. You wasn't laid out with a crack on the nut, old Tinhorn; tell us how it happened.'