“On getting back to the rock I sat down and cried like a child. I felt as if I was done for. At last I got better and began to hope that the chests might be washed on shore, and that I might secure them after all.
“How was I to reach the land? there was the question. I was a bad swimmer, and if I had been a good one the chances were that I should be picked off by a shark. My only remaining hope was that the natives might not be cannibals, and that some of them coming off to fish might see me, and carry me to their island. Still perhaps some days might pass before any one might come out so far. I knew therefore that I must husband my provisions to make them last me as long as possible. Fortunately the rain had filled some hollows in the rock. I drank as much as I wanted of that, and bailed the remainder into the cask I had left with Bill.
“The day passed by and no one appeared, and not only that day but several others went by, and I was still on the rock. I had eaten up all the ham and drunk up nearly every drop of water. I had no means of striking a light, and if I had there was no fuel except my pole, and I could not live long on the raw shell fish which stuck to the rock.
“My last hour I thought was come. I lay down expecting to die, and soon dropped off into a sort of stupor. I was aroused by hearing voices, and looking up I saw a canoe with three brown girls in her, paddling up to the rock. I just lifted my head and made signs that I was very ill; they understood me, and instead of running away managed together to lift me into their canoe. One poured water down my throat, and another fed me with yam. They had been out fishing, and were returning home. They took me to their father’s hut, and fed and nursed me till I recovered. My thoughts were running on the chests with the pearls, but I could hear nothing of them, nor of poor Bill either, nor have I from that day to this.”
Chapter Four.
“I was just well, and thinking what I should do, when a South Sea whaler put into a harbour close by for provisions and water. She wanted hands, and I shipped aboard her. She was not long out from Sydney, to which port she belonged.
“While I served in her I was again nearly lost. We were after a big whale which had already been struck when the creature caught the boat I was in with its flukes, stove in the bows, and turned her right over, while I and the rest of the crew were left struggling in the water. I managed to climb up on the boat’s stern, and hailed another boat which was under sail, but so eager were those in her in pursuit of the monster that they did not see for some time what had occurred. The rest of my mates had sunk before she came up, and I was taken on board so exhausted that I could not have hung on many minutes longer.
“When the cruise was up the whaler returned to Sydney, and I thought that I would stop on shore, and with the money I had saved try what I could do for a living. My cash was gone, however, before I could well look round; my old friends the crimps got most of it.