He had brought his fowling-piece, and we had besides two muskets. He told Jim and me to stand up, with the muskets in our hands, for he didn’t like to trust Horner, while he stepped on shore. Just as the boat reached the beach, and Jim, who was in the bows, was about to jump out, he exclaimed, “Why I do believe those two fellows are Muggins and Jones.”
The doctor leaped on shore, looking carefully round to ascertain that no natives were near. A cry of horror escaped him. The two men were dead, with their skulls fractured, the brains lying about.
Their “free and happy” life on shore had come speedily to an end. Why they had been killed it was difficult to say. The doctor, stooping down, felt the bodies.
“They are perfectly cold, and must have been dead some time,” he observed. “They probably had a quarrel with some of the natives, and were trying to escape to the beach to cry for help, when they were overtaken.”
As we could do nothing we returned to the ship, thankful that we had escaped the treachery of the natives, though, as the doctor observed, the men who had suffered had evidently brought it all upon themselves.
Chapter Twenty One.
A cruise across the Pacific and the adventures I met with.
On reaching the ship we found that the captain, the English missionary, and the big old chief, Utatee, had arrived on board just before us. The doctor at once told them what had occurred.