"And I believed him too, for he looked terribly distressed and cut up, so I shook hands with him too.
"Then Sarréo put out his big brown tattooed hand.
"'And me too, Mr. Warby.'
"The supercargo pressed it gently, so as not to hurt Sarréo's shoulder, then he almost ran past us on deck.
"Well, from that time out, that man Warby changed, and he looked after Sarréo all the time he was laid up, as if he had been his own brother instead of a Kanaka chap before the mast.
"After leaving Marau Sound we stood to the northward, being bound to Bougainville Island. It took us more than a month to get there, and by that time Sarréo was as well and strong as ever he was, and me and the skipper had got quite chummy with the supercargo, for we found out that he had a lot of good points about him. You see, mister, ten or twelve years ago the Solomon Group was the place to show what a man was made of—as far as that goes it's not much altered since. If you don't die of fever you're pretty sure to get knocked on the head and go down the nigger's gullets—and this chap Warby had rare pluck. He never ran a boat's crew into danger, but would take any risks himself, and somehow we had cruised right up from Marau Sound to the north end of Bougainville without losing a man, or having more than a few arrows or shots fired at the boats.
"Just when we were about to brace up to round Bouka Island, and being about three miles off the land, we sighted the hull of a vessel ashore on the beach of a small bay. We stood in for a mile or so and saw that there was a native village at the head of the bay, and that the vessel was a schooner of about a hundred tons. There were no signs of any boats and she seemed to be stripped of both running and standing gear.
"We manned and armed two boats—one, with Mr. Warby in charge, being the landing-party; and the other as a covering boat in case the natives attacked. I had charge of the second boat and had four white sailors; Warby had Sarréo and four other natives. The skipper told us to have a good look at the vessel, then try and learn what the natives on shore had to say about her, and then come off and report.
"We pulled right in to the wreck as close as we could get, for it was low tide. Then Warby and I got out and walked over to it. We found that she was stripped of everything of value, even the chain-plates having been cut out, the decks were torn up and partly burnt, and the anchors and cables were gone; in fact, she was nothing but a shell.
"'Been looted by the niggers,' I said to Warby. 'Hope the poor chaps that manned her got away in the boat; better for 'em to have been drowned than be eaten by these beggars about here.'