"Boys," I said, "let us take pieces of ballast iron and tie them around our necks. One plunge and in a few seconds all of our pains will be gone." "Yes. All right." There were mutterings of assent. But Parmien, the youngest, the one who was nearest death, picked up the comic volume, Fritz Reuter's _Trip to Constantinople_, and began to read a funny story. We all laughed. That book had eased many a hard hour before, on this ghastly voyage, and now, perhaps, it saved our lives. And so we continued on with but one instinct left in us, the sailor's instinct to navigate his craft. Mechanically, without any particular hope, without any particular thought, we trimmed the sails, guided the helm, and calculated our position as best we could. Nautical science was at a low ebb among us now. We were too far gone to reckon exactly where we were, and were only vague in our steering. All we knew was that we should steer to the west where the island groups were. You have read in many a sea story about the delight, the almost insane ecstasy, of castaway men adrift in open boats who are dying of hunger, thirst, and disease, when, at last, a rescuing ship approaches or they see land. No matter how the writers describe it, even the greatest of writers, they can tell you only a tiny bit, only a grain of sand. So, I won't try to say how we felt when we saw a speck on the horizon and the speck grew bigger and turned into the familiar green of a tropical island. We had been so much like dead men, who had thought that nothing could ever make us glad again. By Joe, that sight gladdened our hearts, though. We grew even weaker, but it was the weakness of happiness. As we drew near, we thought of nothing but land, fresh water, and soft food, a soft banana, for our loose, shaky teeth. Never mind ships or capturing ships. Never mind being taken prisoners. We headed straight toward a crude pier that stuck out into the water. A crowd of a hundred natives, perhaps less, were gathered at the landing place watching our approach. They were ferocious-looking black warriors. We had now passed from the region of the brown, indolent Polynesians to those of the black, warlike Melanesians. "What ugly customers," I said to Leudemann. "They look like cannibals." The forbidding battle array on shore stirred a new strength in us. It certainly looked like a cannibal island, and miserable as we were, still we could not escape the thought of our skin and bones being fattened up in preparation for an old-time South Sea banquet. "Clear the boat for action!" I ordered. Even in our present straits, we could still remember our old naval ways. The German flag went jerking to our masthead, and rifles and machine guns were displayed. A shout went up on shore and a babel of talk. Voices yelled in pidgin English. "You Germans? How you get here from way off? Come on. Germans great warriors."