We got safely out of the lagoon to sea, and on board the ship. The canoes were far down to leeward. They had given the ship a wide berth, but might come back again, after we had gone, to pick up their dead. I did not know what customs they practised in that respect. I know I was surprised to find that it was not yet noon. It seemed to me that almost a lifetime had passed since we had left the ship that morning. The wounded were cared for at once. Then the body of the Prince was passed up, and laid on the hatch cover. I drew near to it, and found Peter beside me. I had forgotten Jimmy Appleby.

Peter said nothing, but he laid his arm across my shoulders, and we saw the sailmaker come with a piece of old canvas, and his palm, and stitch the Prince up carefully, a few links of old chain cable at his feet. I saw the crew gathering with bared heads, and Captain Nelson standing with a little book, but I did not hear what he read. The man in that long white bundle—it shone dazzlingly in the hot sunshine—would not have been there except for me. I hid my face in my arm against the rigging, hot tears burned my eyes, and my shoulders shook; there was a gentle noise of canvas slipping on wood, a splash, and I raised my head to see Captain Nelson clapping his book shut, and the men as they turned away.

Peter patted my shoulder. “Don’t ye grieve, lad,” he said. “He ’d have liked this way of it better. He was a good shipmate, if his skin was black. Come now, you ’re wanted. A bite of dinner ’ll do you a world of good.”

At that I am afraid I laughed. It was hysterical, but I was quieted somewhat, and I went below.

I had not yet had a chance to hear Jimmy’s story. It had to wait still longer, for the boats were sent ashore again in the afternoon, with all the new men, and some of ours. They buried the men of the Battles as well as they could. It was almost impossible to dig in that beach, for it was all coral below the very surface. Then they carried their boats across from the ocean side to the lagoon, not more than three or four hundred feet, but the low summit thickly grown up with coconut-palms and low bushes and vines. It must have reminded Captain Coffin of the “haulover” at Nantucket, except for the growth. The “haulover” is nothing but bare sand, and I believe the sea had not broken through at that time. These boats which I speak of were those in which our new friends had come. I should not speak of them as our new friends, for many of them were old friends.

Captain Coffin, with a boat’s crew, stayed on the Battles that night, looking her over. Jimmy did not, and I got his story. He was bursting with it. His ship was the John and Alice. After I left New Bedford his desire for the same sort of life, always strong, had become intense. He gave his parents no peace for nearly two years, finally threatening to run away if they would not let him go. They gave in at that, and in the summer of 1874 he shipped before the mast on the John and Alice. They had been out just about a year, had cruised off the River Plate, doubled the Horn, and covered the On Shore and Off Shore grounds. They were making their leisurely way toward Japan when the John and Alice was sunk by a whale in 145° W., 7° S., carrying their five hundred barrels of oil down with her. The crew took to the boats. There had been time to stow plenty of provisions and water in the boats, and they were making for Tahiti, which they would have reached safely, without doubt. But they sighted some of these low-lying islands, and went in among them. They had been sailing through the passages of the archipelago for two days. At daylight on that morning they saw the topmasts of the Clearchus showing dimly in the distance, and the topmasts of the Battles and the coco-palms soon rose. They were making for the ship, passing just outside the line of surf which fringed the island, when they heard our tumult, and landed the best way they could. They managed it, but lost one of their boats in the surf, capsized and pretty badly stove. The surf had not been heavy, or they would have lost more, and possibly some men. Captain Nelson had the stove boat brought aboard for Peter’s surgery.

Of course Jimmy’s narrative was not so briefly told as I have given it. He was discursive and conversational, and given to embellishment. I kept him up until late that night, telling me all he knew of my mother, my father, my brothers, Tom and Josh; and I asked him about all my friends, ending up with Ann McKim. About Ann he was enthusiastic, speaking of her in the slang of the day. I forget what expression he used, but it corresponded to “perfect peach.” I could well believe it.

Captain Coffin had found the Annie Battles pretty firmly aground, and the coral had punched a hole in her. It was not a hopeless hole, although enough to justify any master in abandoning his vessel. Captain Coffin was not that kind. All the stuff was taken out of her, and spread on the beach. Then she was hastily patched on the inside, and pumped out. That was very nearly enough to float her, but not quite, for the rise of the tide at this point is small. Still there was that little peak of hard, sharp coral, which they were afraid would tear out more of her planking when eight boats were fast, with forty oars pulling at her. Our Kanakas had to go down and cut away the coral. Then she was beached, and hove down by our cutting-tackles from her mastheads to coconut-trunks. Her cutting-tackles had disappeared—probably thrown overboard.

We all helped in this work, and I found that I had more bruises and unimportant wounds than I had believed possible; but the condition was common to all who had been in the fight, and I was interested in the work, which was familiar. We simply had to dispose of the corpses within a couple of days of beginning the work. That was an unpleasant job. We took them far down to leeward, and buried them hastily in a cavern we found in the coral, but that did not entirely get rid of the stench at the beach. It was probably from the bodies of the white men buried there—in very shallow graves.

It took two weeks to get the Battles beached and repaired. Then we got her afloat again, the topmasts and yards sent up, sails bent and every­thing shipshape. With all her cargo—mostly trading stuff—piled on deck, we towed her out through the pass in the reef, and she was at sea again, where she belonged. She tied up alongside the Clearchus, and there began a wholesale transfer of cargo.