When I awoke the morning sun was shining through my porthole, and looking out, I saw that we lay close to the beach, just inside the pass of Iriatai. A noise of thumping and scrubbing overhead told me that the decks were being washed down. We were at anchor, I knew, for the schooner lay motionless, though the current at this place was strong. An hour passed and as I craned my neck out the port I saw the Cholita's dinghey approaching us from the north. The handsome little boat drew near and I saw Rairi in the stern, a Winchester across his knees and a bandolier of cartridges over one shoulder. Schmidt's shock-headed black was at the oars and at his feet a man lay in the bottom of the dinghey--an elderly native, bound hand and foot, his gray head matted with blood and unsheltered from the sun. It was Pahuri--I knew with a sudden breathlessness that they had taken the Tara and that Rairi was enjoying a savage's revenge. The dinghey passed out of my sight around the schooner's stern. I heard the thump of a body flung down roughly on the after deck, Rairi's voice raised in a sharp command, and the creak of the davit-blocks as the boat was hoisted to the rail. Then, for a long time, all was quiet. Rairi had gone below for a rest and a nap, leaving the black on guard, for most of the crew were new men whom neither Rairi nor Schmidt would trust too far. Finally the silence was broken by a weak voice--old Pahuri begging monotonously for water. Heavy steps came aft over my head and I heard the mate order the black man to give water to his prisoner. But the savage chattered a refusal in his own uncouth tongue; he had a rifle and he was under orders from Rairi, so Tua strode forward angrily, muttering to himself. Then suddenly I heard a rapid whispering at the keyhole of my door. It was Raita. "Eh, boy!" she said, "listen--you asleep?" "No," I whispered back. "Last night," she went on, "Schmidt take your schooner--Rairi bring back old man he no like. I sorry that man--head hurt--too much blood. Rairi leave him in sun--no give water. Schmidt stop aboard your schooner--suppose wind come up, Cholita go there. Native boy, your friend, swim ashore last night. Me think go too, then think no--me stop aboard, maybe help you. Ah--me hear Rairi--me go!"