savage who leaves the deck, and Bent explains to whom the paper is to be delivered. We now use all haste to get ready for sailing. We have for the present escaped a great danger, but we tremble for the fate of our shipmates, and we are convinced that fear alone will keep these savages in order. The chiefs, finding that Bent can speak their language, endeavour to persuade him to let them go. "When our friends return you will be set at liberty," is his answer. It seems at present very doubtful whether they ever will return. Bent says that these people are treacherous in the extreme, worshippers of devils, offerers up of human sacrifices, and cannibals, though not so bad as the people of Fiji, the next islands we are to visit. The chiefs all this time are kept in durance below. I have seldom seen four finer men in figure and feature. The children, Bent says, are often quite white, like English children, but as heathens they are born, and as heathens they die, without hope. A boat is now reported coming off from the shore. A large canoe follows. In the boat are fewer men than left the ship. What has been the fate of the rest? They come alongside, and we order the big canoe to keep off. The supercargo and Taro make their appearance on deck. Their escape has been most miraculous. Already had the clubs of the natives begun to play on the heads of their companions, and five had fallen. Golding tells me that he expected every moment to be his last. The man next him had been struck down, and lay writhing on the ground, when a cry was raised, and the canoes were seen hurrying away from the ship, the savages refrained from letting drop their uplifted clubs, and watched the approaching canoes. When the messenger with the note arrived there was a long consultation. Golding says he never felt so uneasy. It was handed to Tony Hinks, who, unable to read, gave it to Golding. He assumed a tone of authority, and through Taro told the savages that if all the survivors were not released their chiefs would be carried away captives. They seemed to hesitate. Golding believed that they were balancing in their minds whether they loved their chiefs or the blood of the white strangers most. At last they decided to let Golding and Taro with three other men go, and to keep Tony Hinks, whom they take to be a chief, as a hostage. Tony was very unhappy at being left, and tried to escape, but the savages held him fast, and Taro, it seems, who owes him a grudge, would not help him. Thus we are placed in a difficulty to know how to get Tony back without first liberating the chiefs. If it were not for the boatswain, the captain says he would hang all four at the yard-arm. At last it is decided that one alone shall go, and Bent is instructed to tell him, that unless the boatswain instantly returns alive and unhurt, the other three shall be hung up. I put him on board a canoe, which comes out to meet our boat as we pull in.