"We could put them on one of the schooners, and you could convoy them part way home," said Blair to Cathie. "I really don't think we have anything more to fear from them." "I can do all that," said Cathie. "But all the same I'd as lieve they were none of them going home." "Why?" "Well, you never know. If ever they can do us a mischief you may take your davy they'll do it." "I don't really see what they can do, captain." But Cathie only shook his head. Perhaps his ideas were too vague to clothe in words. Just then a shadowy figure slipped out of the darkness under the house, reached up, and rolled something softly along the platform towards them. "Hello! What's this?" said Cathie. [Illustration: "Hello! what's this?"] "A present--for Aunt Jannet, I should say," laughed Blair. "Some dusky admirer bringing tribute." "A thankoffering to the wounded warriors," said Evans. "An unusually fine coco-nut," said Stuart, tipping it with his usable foot. "Carefully wrapped in leaves, too." Captain Cathie picked it up, and began to open the bundle. Evans struck a match, and match and bundle fell suddenly with a dull, dead bump to the floor, and were followed by a quite involuntary and seamanlike oath from the captain. "What is it?" cried the younger ladies in a breath. "Come away!" said Aunt Jannet hastily, and set the example herself. "It's a man's head," said Evans gravely, as he tried to light a lamp. And when the lamp was lit, and the bundle lay open in their midst, they saw that he was right--it was the head of a man. An exclamation burst from Blair as he bent over the ghastly offering, while the others wondered what it might mean. Was it a challenge?--a defiance?--a threat? None of these. "It is the head of Ra'a," said Blair at last. "I wonder who it was that brought it? If we knew that, we might guess what it means." There had been no fighting of late between Ha'o's people and Ra'a's. In fact, the quiescence of the latter during the other troubles had been cause for congratulation. And since then everything had been quiet in the villages--over-quiet, the quietness of repletion. Evans had indeed begun to fear ill results from the over-indulgence of savage appetites. "What do you make of it, captain?" asked Blair at last, as of one more versed than the rest in heathen ways. "Hanged if I know!" said the old man, with a puzzled frown. "I take it, it is a sign of submission on the part of Ra'a's men," said Blair quietly. "Ra'a himself would never have come in of his own accord. His men have wanted to, and so they have brought him." "I shouldn't wonder," said Cathie. "It's just the thing they might do." And in the morning they sent up early for Ha'o, and showed him the message, and asked his opinion. "Kenni is right," he said at last. "They submit." And presently he went boldly up the mountain-side and in due course came back with Ra'a's followers in a straggling tail behind him.