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But, a few days later, after our black friends had wandered off to other pastures, I was delighted to find that there were still plenty of fish in the pools. Kusis laughed. "Futu is good, but we of Kusaie do not use it we have oap which is stronger and better. Come, I will show you some oap growing, and to-morrow you shall see how good it is."
First of all, however, let me make some brief mention of the island and its people. Kusaie is about thirty-five miles in circumference and of basaltic formation, and from the coast to the lofty summit of Mount Buache, 2,200 feet high, is clothed with the richest verdure imaginable.
If much of it be bruised and thrown into the water, it kills the largest fish very soon, and even turtles will 'sicken. It is very strong." I asked him how the people of Kusaie first became acquainted with the properties of the plant. He shook his head. "I do not know.
"What is our science against that? Or against the science of whatever devils that made it or made the way for it to enter this world of ours?" With an effort he regained control. "Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines; the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there?
"The schooner," she said, "sailed very quickly, for on the fifteenth day out from Funafuti we saw the far-off peaks of Strong's Island. I was glad, for Kusaie is not many days' sail from Ponape and I hated to be on the ship. The man with the blue eyes filled me with fear when he looked at me; and he and the captain and mate were for ever talking amongst themselves in whispers.
We made a quick passage to the Caroline Islands, touching at Kusaie or Strong's Island on our way, and on a Sunday evening swept into Jakoits Harbour on the island of Ponapé before a strong trade-wind. Here we made engagements for our passengers with a German planter, and two days later we again were at sea, bound for the western portion of the Carolines.
Recollect Captain Clopert, whose vessel, the Southport, was captured by a German man-of-war, was taken to the island of Kusaie, and was there disabled by the removal of certain important parts of her machinery. She was evidently to be utilised as a collier, but no sooner had the enemy left than the master, officers, and men set to work to effect repairs.
At dawn when I was awakened, after a good four hours' sleep, Apamama was thirty miles astern of us, and we were running free before a nice cool breeze, steering N.W. for Kusaie Island, the eastern outlier of the Carolines, eight hundred miles away. The two women had not heard me move, and were both sound asleep, their faces close together and their arms intertwined.
It was daylight of the sixth day out from Kusaie, and as I stood up to get a better view of the land I was well satisfied. "We have done well," I said exultantly to Lucia, who was steering: "three hundred and forty miles in five days with a two-knot current against us all the way!"
Then we returned to Ponapé, where we remained a month, wooding and watering and cleaning the ship's bottom by the aid of native divers of both sexes. Leaving Ponapé we drifted rather than sailed back to the eastward, and one morning in March we again saw the verdant heights of beautiful Kusaie or Strong's Island, about ten miles away.
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