Having said good-bye to our two native companions and their friends, we weighed anchor and, sailing once more for China Straits, arrived off Samarai on Christmas Eve, feeling all the better for our expedition.
CHAPTER IX.
THE "TRIAL."
We landed our turtle, killed it, and then cut it up ready for our Christmas dinner on the following day. In our absence, about a dozen diggers had arrived on the island from St. Aignan and Sud-Est. Many of them were suffering from that dreadful scourge, malarial fever. We had returned in good health, but could not tell the day or hour when we, too, might be struck down by the dreaded fiend.
Surrounded as we were by sick and groaning men, our Christmas, instead of being a joyful one, was gloomy in the extreme. The air was stifling, the heat unbearable, and a sickly miasma was rising from the rank vegetation. It is not surprising, therefore, that our spirits were damped by the surroundings.
I had often suffered from the effects of malaria, so could sympathise with the victims. When laid low with it, to use a colloquial phrase, you do not care "who wins the cup." All interest in life has departed. When at its height, should any one take hold of you and throw you into the sea, you would not have the energy or the wish to utter a protest. I have seen ladies suffering from sea-sickness affected in the same way. At such a time, this mundane existence of ours has no attraction for them. They simply long for death to put an end to their misery.
This only shows how necessary it is to try to the best of your ability to keep up your spirits, for if once you give in it will not be long before you are removed to a better and healthier sphere. One of the diggers, Peter Carlson, a Swede by birth, was very bad, vomiting every half-hour.
He had recently returned from St. Aignan, an island 100 miles to windward, where he had been digging for gold.
He, together with two companions and a native boy, had arrived in a small cutter. When half-way he fell overboard, and would have been drowned had it not been for the plucky conduct of the native youth, who promptly jumped in after him, and with the aid of a piece of wood kept him afloat until the cutter came up with them. Strange to say, a few weeks later he left Samarai in the same cutter on his way back to St. Aignan, and, being a bit of a sailor, had charge of the tiller. A mountainous sea was running, and the night was dark, when suddenly a sea was shipped which carried him and the tiller overboard. That was the last seen of the doomed man. It is strange that having been saved on the outward trip he should be lost on the return journey. His death was much regretted, as he was respected and well liked by all who knew him.