“Which will be a treat for us, Martin. Those boys really make more noise every day. And do you know what they have done now?”
He shook his head.
“They have a live hawkbill turtle in their room—quite a large one, for I could scarcely move it—and have painted its back in five or six colours. And they feed it on live fish; the room smells horribly.”
Flemming laughed. “I thought I could smell fresh paint about the house yesterday. Never mind, 'Lani. It won't hurt the turtle.”
CHAPTER II
At seven o'clock on the following morning the boys had not returned, and Martin Flemming, just as his wife brought him his cup of coffee, was saying that they probably were still fishing, when he heard a sound that made him spring to his feet—the long, hoarse, bellowing note of a conch shell, repeated three times.
“That's a call to arms!” he cried, “what does it mean, I wonder. Ah, there is another sounding, too, from the far end of the village. I must go and see what is the matter.”
Scarcely, however, had he put his foot outside his door when he heard his boys' voices, and in another moment he saw them running or rather staggering along the path together with a crowd of natives, who were all wildly excited, and shouting at the top of their voices.
“Father, father,” and the eldest boy ran to him, and scarcely able to stand, so exhausted was he, he flung himself down on the verandah steps, “father, Jack and Tom, and the two Anaa men... been stolen by a strange ship... we must... we must save them.”