Three times the shark came up, and thrice Ned prepared to strike, but each time the grim ranger of the seas turned aside as it caught sight of the waiting figure with weapon poised above. But at last hunger prevailed, and, swimming slowly up till within a few yards of the boat, it made a sudden rush for the human bait, missed it, and the harpoon, deftly darted by the old ex-whaler, clove through its tough skin and buried itself deep into its body between the shoulders.
It took the worn-out, exhausted men a long time to haul alongside and despatch the struggling monster, which, says Renton, was ten feet in length.
Then followed shark's flesh and shark's blood, some of the former, after the first raw meal, being cooked on a fire made of the biscuit barge upon a wet blanket spread in the bottom of the boat. The hot weather, however, soon turned the remaining portion putrid, but two or three days later came God's blessed rain, and gave them hope and life again. They managed to save a considerable quantity of water, and, though the shark's flesh was in a horrible condition, they continued to feed upon it until the thirty-fifth day.
On this day they saw land, high and well wooded; but now the trade-wind failed them, and for the following two days the unfortunate men contended with baffling light airs, calms, and strong currents. At last they got within a short distance of the shore, and sought for a landing-place through the surrounding surf.
Suddenly four or five canoes darted out from the shore. They were filled with armed savages, whose aspect and demeanour warned old Ned that he and his comrades were among cannibals. Sweeping alongside the boat, the savages seized the white men, who were all too feeble to resist, or even move, put them into their canoes, and conveyed them on shore, fed them, and treated them with much apparent kindness. Crowds of natives from that part of the island—which was Malayta, one of the Solomon Group—came to look at them, and one man, a chief, took a fancy to Renton, and claimed him as his own especial property.
Renton never saw the rest of his companions again, for they were removed to the interior of the Island—probably sold to some of the bush tribes, the "man-a-bush," as the coastal natives called them. Their fate is not difficult to guess, for the people of Malayta were then, as they are now, cannibals.
On August 7, 1875, the Queensland labour recruiting schooner Bobtail Nag was cruising off the island, trading for yams, and her captain heard from some natives who came alongside that there was a white man living ashore in a village about ten miles distant. The skipper of the Bobtail Nag at once offered to pay a handsome price if the man was brought on board, and at the cost of several dozen Birmingham steel axes and some tobacco poor Renton's release was effected. He told his rescuers that the people among whom he had lived had taken a great fancy to him, and had treated him with great kindness.
If the reader will look at a chart of the South Pacific, he will see, among the Phoenix Group, the position of McKean's Island; two thousand miles distant, westward and southward, is the island of Malayta, upon which Renton and his companions in misery drifted.