"These fellows shammed to be as good as gold at first, (though of course they knew nothing of their lingo) and supplied them with food, and gave them huts to live in, and laid themselves out to be obliging. So that the castaways, eighteen in number, began to go about the place, as if they were at home, and prepared, with the rough tools they could make, to build a craft big enough to carry them away. But suddenly two of their number were missing, and then two more, and then another couple; and the natives endeavoured to persuade them by signs, that these had only wandered away into the woods, and would soon find their way home again. The surviving dozen did their best to hope so, but took more care to keep together, and not to go abroad at all at night.
"But very soon, they found out the horrible meaning of it. For suddenly the savages, having lost all patience, with their appetites whetted by the relish of white flesh, fell upon them in the night, and killed them all but three, leaving nothing but their bones by the morrow night. Those three they kept alive, because they were too thin; until they fattened up two, and devoured them. The third, and last, was our friend Rees Edwards, who fell into a melancholy frame of mind, and refused to grow eatable, upon any kind of ration. So they put him in the temple, where they kept their chief idol, believing that this would improve his texture, and consecrating him to be sacrificed, whether he were fat, or whether he were lean, upon the appearance of the following moon.
"Edwards, however, was a very clever fellow, and pretending to be altogether resigned to his fate, obtained some privileges, as a holy man now, and devoted to the glory of their great idol, Jumbilug. He kept a sharp watch upon the moon as well; and took strengthening victuals, as he saw her getting thinner. He had learned a good deal of their lingo by this time, and found out from them about the white man's fort, over against the further end of that island. And the very night before the new moon would appear, he slipped through a hole, which he had long been boring in the mud wall of the joss-house, and escaped into the woods, with a long start of his enemies. He made his way eastward by the stars, till sunrise, and eastward the whole of the following day, with his enemies upon his track, as you have heard already.
"'Now, captain,' he said, when his tale was finished; 'you have done me the best turn one man can do another; and I wish I could make you some small return. Jumbilug is the finest woman I ever saw; and it would not be so very hard to run away with her.'
"I told him, that this was not in my line at all, having always been shy of the sex; except to make a joke, or pass a compliment. But he laughed, and said—
"'No fear of her tongue, captain, although she has got a very handsome one; and her teeth are all pearls, and her lips are coral, and her eyes are as blue as the sky, and much brighter, and her hair is spun gold; you never saw such a beauty.'
"'I don't care a d—n for all that,' I replied, 'a woman aboard is the devil himself.'
"But, when I found that all these beauties were real, and could have no deception about them, (because the fair woman was made of wood) I became very eager to possess these charms, if it might be done, without fool-hardiness. Edwards assured me, that with a little dash, and management, it might well be done; for Jumbilug's house was a good bit away from the town of these savages, and very near the sea. And if we desired to punish the barbarians—as every man John of us burned to do—for the murder of poor little Tommy, and the massacre, roasting, and devouring of seventeen helpless white men, nothing could be such a desperate blow to them, as to lose their idol. For generation, after generation, had spent their best treasures in adorning her.
"'If she's worth a penny, she's worth £50,000; and they'd rather lose their biggest chief, and all their wives, and daughters. I'm no judge of jewels, captain, but her eyes are something to beat all female embellishment. They come after you, all over the place, and they shine by night, like a million fire-flies. The tradition of the people is, that they were brought by a bird with great wings, from a country far away; perhaps an old trading ship from Borneo. Anyhow, there they are; and the pearls of teeth, as big as my thumb pretty nearly, and the tongue some red jewel they pick out of the rocks, and the hair spun gold almost down to her waist, and the whole of the breast covered up with fine pearls—ah, you should have seen her when the full moon shone, as it did upon the night when I was dedicated!'
"This description, my dear Tommy, produced a very fine effect upon my mind. I have heard your dear mother say, a hundred times, that nothing is so elevating to the male nature as admiration of a virtuous female. And where could I hope to find any female, half so virtuous as Jumbilug? But I cautioned Rees Edwards, not to let our fellows know, what the value of this fair maiden was.