'Get in, Pulu, get in,' said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; 'get in quickly.'
But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he said, and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth man. This was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awful risk the men ran, and urged them to jump in and paddle, yet knew that the additional weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death to all, for every now and then a leaping sea would again fill the boat to the thwarts.
And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers on the reef, Rídan raised his voice in an awful shriek.
'Quick! Pulu, quick! Some shark hav' come. Get in, get in first,' he said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of the water, and a bubbling, groan-like sound issued from his lips.
In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von Hammer called to Rídan to get in also.
'Nay, oh, white man!' he answered, in a strange choking voice, 'let me stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But paddle, paddle... quickly!'
In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Rídan's voice was heard.
'Lift me in,' he said quietly, 'my strength is spent.'
The two Savage Islanders sprang to his aid, drew him up over the side, and tumbled him into the boat. Then, without a further look, they seized their paddles and plunged them into the water. Rídan lay in a huddled-up heap on the bottom boards.
'Exhausted, poor devil!' said Von Hammer to himself, bending down and peering at the motionless figure through the darkness. Then something warm flowed over his naked foot as the boat rolled, and he looked closer at Rídan, and—