“Quick! Quick, man, for the love of God!” came in loud, hoarse tones from the captain of the brigantine, who stood on the rail holding to the main rigging, and drawing a pistol from his belt he sent its bullet within a few feet of the feeble swimmer.
Only another ten yards, when, as if aware of the awful fate that awaited her, Mâhia half raised herself, and with dying strength held the child out almost clear of the water. And then, as her panting bosom wailed out her husband's name for the last time, there pealed out upon the ocean a shriek of mortal agony, and he saw her drop the infant and disappear in a swirl of eddying foam. Ere that awful cry had ceased to vibrate through the morning air, a native had sprung from the canoe and seized the drowning child, and the agonised father, looking down into the blue depths, saw a running streak of bubbling white five fathoms beneath. Again the native dived, and followed the wavering track of white, and presently, not fifty feet away, they saw him rise with the woman on his arm, her long black hair twining around his brawny neck and shoulders.
“By God, he's saved her!” cried the mate, as both his boat and Brandon's canoe reached the native simultaneously, and they reached out their hands to take hold of the motionless figure.
“Paranta, turn thy eyes away,” said a native, and flinging his arms around the white man, he forced his face away as the diver and his burden were lifted into the boat.
A shuddering sob stirred the frame of the mate or the brigantine when he saw that only the upper half of the woman's body was left.
II.
With the captain of the sandal-wooder, the broken-hearted wanderer, had taken passage, and one day, as he watched the movements of his child as it frolicked with the rough seamen of the brigantine, the haunting fear of discovery returned to him in all its first force of three years before. A kindly remark made by the rough but good-natured skipper led him to reveal his story, and the seaman's face fell when the deserter asked him if he thought it possible he could ever return to England with safety.
“No, I don't. You might but I can tell you that a man with a figure like you—6 ft. 1 in. if you're an inch, and with a cut across the face—wouldn't miss being found out. And look here, 'tisn't even safe for you to come to Singapore. There's many a King's ship around these parts, and the chances are that some of the company of any one of 'em would recognise you—and you know what that means. If I were in your place I would try and get away in an American whaler. Once in America you'll be safe enough. The best I can do for you is to put you ashore at the Bonin Islands. There's bound to be whalers in there next season, making up northwards to the coast of Japan and Tchantar Bay.”
One day they sailed slowly into a little land-locked harbour in the Bonin Islands, and Brandon, grasping the kind-hearted skipper's hand, bade him goodbye, and went ashore. Here, among the strange hybrid population of natives, half-bloods, runaways from whale-ships, and Portuguese, he found employment at boat-building, and for another three years lived contentedly enough, working hard, and saving what little money he could. Then came the Oliver Cromwell and reported that an English frigate which was at anchor a few miles away at another harbour would be at his then refuge on the following day.