Meanwhile the crew had begun work on a small schooner after electing Captain Wilson as their superior officer, the narrative explaining that “as every reader may not be acquainted with maritime proceedings, to such it will not be improper to remark that when a merchant ship is wrecked all authority immediately ceases, and every individual is at full liberty to shift for himself.” It was faithfully promised that in all things the men would obey Captain Wilson as when the _Antelope_ had been afloat. The second officer, Mr. Barker, had been a shipwright in his youth, and he aided the carpenter in laying out the work. The tasks were methodically distributed, Mr. Matthias Wilson, Surgeon Sharp, and Captain Wilson sawing down trees, the boatswain in charge of the blacksmith shop, the gunner acting as chief of police, and a number of Chinese coolie passengers fetching water, hauling timbers, and running a laundry. Most of the sailors were employed in the carpenter’s gang. A stout stockade was built around the little shipyard and two swivel-guns were mounted against a possible attack from seaward. From the wreck of the _Antelope_ the boats brought cordage, oakum, iron, and copper, planking and timbers. It was an orderly bit of Old England transplanted to the remote and barbarous Pelew Island. And of course Captain Wilson read prayers to the assembled crew every Sunday evening. The schooner’s keel had been laid and the stem and stern-post bolted on, with the frames taking shape in the busy yard, when the five bold sailormen came back from the war with a tale of victory won over the forces of the King of Artingall. Their own sovereign, Abba Thulle, and his commander-in-chief, Raa Kook, had mustered a hundred and fifty canoes and a thousand men armed with spears and darts, which they handled with amazing skill. The enemy had fled after a spirited skirmish in which musketry-fire made a complete rout of it. At Pelew the victors had delayed for feasting and dances, and the English seamen volunteers seemed highly pleased with the soldier’s life. They cheerfully set about their allotted tasks in the shipyard, however, and doffed the blue jackets and cocked hats. In token of their service, Abba Thulle formally presented to the English party this island of Oroolong on which they dwelt, and in the native language it was rechristened “Englishman’s Land.” Captain Wilson thereupon ran up the British ensign, and three volleys of small arms were fired. By way of entertainment, one of the king’s brothers came to spend the night “and brought with him all his spirits and gaiety, diverting them wonderfully with the pleasant description of the late engagement and acting with his accustomed humor and gestures the panic which had seized the enemy the instant they heard the report of the English guns.”