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Then came a tremendous crash, and the Lupetea shook and quivered in every timber, as the mighty avalanche of water fell upon and buried her; smashing the wheel to splinters, snapping off the rudder head, and sweeping the deck clean of everything movable. A month later the vessel drifted ashore on Anouda Island, just as Mrs. Marston was beginning to despair.
I did not think that we should hear anything of the Lupetea so far to the westward over a thousand miles from Samoa but as three of our coloured crew are down with fever, I decided to anchor, leave them here in care of the natives, and also find out if any wreckage had been seen.
We should get to Apia in less than twenty-four hours if there is any kind of a breeze at all. And for such a small vessel her accommodation is really very good, so the ladies and children will be very comfortable, I hope." "Yes," said Meredith, "the Lupetea is the best schooner in the group. I've made two or three trips in her to Fiji.
The Lupetea was a rather handsome little vessel, well-fitted for the island trade, and carried besides Villari and the mate six hands, all of whom were Europeans, and Raymond at once recognised several of them as old habituée of Apia beach men whose reputation as loafers and boozers of the first water was pretty well known in Samoa. The mate, too, was one of the same sort.
Raymond at once sent Meredith and Rudd to Apia to charter two or even three local schooners to sail in search of the Lupetea, and for over a month whilst I was there a most unremitting search was kept up, and letters were sent all over the Pacific asking the traders at the various islands to keep a good look-out either for the schooner or any wreckage which might come ashore.
Raymond, who was half mad with anxiety for you, asked the chief to provide her with a boat to return to Samatau and tell her husband of what had happened. They left after an hour's rest and almost foundered in the same squall which overtook the Lupetea. However, they reached Samatau a little before sunset.
And that also was why Lupetea was afraid of the boat going down inside the passage, for there were many enemies to be met with, and they would have shot old Lupetea because she was of Manono. That was all. Then she ate the sardines, and, leaning her head against the trader's bosom, fell asleep.
Then she told the story of how her granddam had begged the heads from those of Malietoa's troops who had taken them at Matautu, and then gone to the camp at Mulinu'u in the hope of getting a passage in some boat to Manono, her country, where she would fain bury them. And that night he had come, and old Lupetea had rejoiced, and sworn her to secrecy about the heads in the basket.
"After remaining ashore for a day only, Raymond again sailed this time to make a search among the Friendly Islands; and I, with Mr. Rudd and Overseer Lorimer to assist me, sailed for the Solomon Group. We decided, instead of proceeding direct to the Solomons for our cargo of black humanity, to first cruise through the New Hebrides Group, in the hope we might learn something of the Lupetea."
All that night the Lupetea swept steadily and swiftly along over a smooth sea, and then at daylight, Mrs. Marston, who had fallen asleep, was aroused by a loud cry of alarm from Lilo. She sprang from her berth, and saw that the boy was kneeling beside Villari, who was lying dead at the foot of the companion, with a pistol in his hand. "He hath killed himself, Ami," said the boy.
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