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I'm sure you'll get to like each other by-and-by. Good-night." "Good-night, sir," replied Barry courteously. "I think we had better keep on towing until daylight." The advent of Mr. Billy Warner of Ponapé with his entourage of sixteen truculent, evil-faced Solomon Islanders was not regarded with enthusiasm by the chief officer and the native crew of the Mahina.

And, although you once refused to accept anything from me, I shall indeed feel hurt if you will not now reconsider your former decision. It will add considerably to the pleasure I feel at this moment." "The native boys certainly do deserve a handsome present from the owner of the Mahina," replied the chief officer, emphasising the word "owner."

I was just dozing off comfortably when suddenly I felt my arm seized, and on looking up saw Mahina pointing in the direction of the goats. "Sher!" I grasped my double smooth-bore, which, I had charged with slug, and waited patiently.

Barry." For thirteen days the little Mahina ran southward under cloudless skies and over softly swelling seas till Bouka was sighted, and Togaro and his men prepared to be landed in a little bay fringed with coco-palms growing around a half-circle of snowy beach.

While Mahina was scouring the neighbourhood in search of some natives to carry the skin back to camp, I took a good look round the place and found the half-eaten body of a zebra, which I noticed had been killed out in the open and then dragged into the long grass. The tracks told me, also, that all the work had been done by the lion, and this set me thinking of the lioness.

But to these remonstrances he turned an impatient ear. "We must push her along through the Solomons," he had said one dark night to Barry as the Mahina was tearing through the water under the hum of a heavy squall, quivering in every timber, and deluging her decks with clouds of spray which, from there being a head sea, leapt up from her weather bow as high as the foretopsail.

Mahina preferred to sit where he could take a comfortable nap, and wedged himself in a fork of the tree some little way below me, but still some eight or ten feet from the ground. It was a calm and perfect night, such as can be seen only in the tropics; everything looked mysteriously beautiful in the glorious moonlight, and stood out like a picture looked at through a stereoscope.

A third shot had no apparent effect, so I put out my hand for the Martini, hoping to stop him with it. To my dismay, however, it was not there. The terror of the sudden charge had proved too much for Mahina, and both he and the carbine were by this time well on their way up a tree.

Under it we built a goodly fire, made some tea, and roasted a couple of quails which I had shot early in the day and which proved simply delicious. We then betook ourselves to the branches at least, Mahina and I did; Moota was afraid of nothing, and said he would sleep on the ground.

I therefore determined to make a detour round it, but Mahina was confident that he could walk along in the river itself. I hinted mildly at the possibility of there being crocodiles under the rocky ledges. Mahina declared, however, that there was no danger, and making a bundle of his lower garments, he tied it to his back and stepped into the water. For a few minutes all went well.