In a moment the dark figure had bolted. In another moment Ulysses, Hillary, the boatswain and the two sailors had joined in the chase, all rushing like mad after the flying figure. Only the sorrowful mate stood still on the sands just by the wreck, his loose clothing flapping over his shrunken figure as though he was some mysterious scarecrow left there by the late crew.
Hillary led the way in that chase, Bilbao following just behind, yelling forth mighty bets as to the winner, his big, sea-booted feet stirring the silvery sands into clouds of moon-lit sparkle as he thundered behind the apprentice.
“It’s Macka! It’s Macka Rajah!” Bilbao roared, as he stopped a second and held his stomach, that heaved with a mirth which seemed considerably out of place at such a time. Suddenly the flying figure fell down. The white men, who were rushing down a steep incline, could not stay themselves, and in a moment they had all fallen on top of the gasping, terrified figure.
“O papalagi! Talofa! No kille me! Me nicer Samoan mans. Me shipwreck; savee mee!” yelled the frightened native, as he felt the full weight of the white men on his recumbent form. There was something so appealing and sincere in his voice and broken English that they all realised in a moment that the poor devil was not to blame for his lonely position on the island.
When all was safe, and they had led the trembling Samoan castaway back to the sands, the chief mate breathed a sigh of relief and gave the poor castaway a drink from his whisky flask.
It turned out that he was a Samoan sailor, one of the crew of the wreck that lay on the reefs. She had left Apia about six months before, bound for the Bismarck Archipelago, and had run ashore in a typhoon. The German crew had taken to the boats whilst the Samoan sailor had lain ill under the palms (just like Germans). And so he had awakened to find himself alone on the island.
“Where’s all the cargo, and the skipper’s property?” said Bilbao, as a great hope sprang up in his breast, for he thought that perhaps the native had taken them off the wreck and hidden them on the island. Then the native told them that about two moons after the wreck had been lying on the shore a fleet of canoes sighted her and came out of their course to the islands.
“They came one day, again next days and next days, for a longer times,” said the castaway.
It appeared that Tampo, the Samoan, for that was his name, was too frightened to show himself to the Malabar natives, who toiled from sunrise to sunset in robbing the wreck of her cargo. The poor native well knew that many of the natives of the isles in the coral seas were inveterate cannibals. And he didn’t feel inclined to take any risk of being cooked and eaten. He preferred to hide in the tropical growth till a white man’s ship sighted him or the wreck. And certainly he was wise in taking this course.
The castaway was delighted when Ulysses said: “Come along, old Talofa, get yer traps together, pack yer fig-leaf up and come aboard.”