spur of the mountain. If this be not done, then shall we kill all whom we meet—men, women or children. Now go and tell the man who flogged us that some day we shall cook and eat his head, for we are very strong men.'

"Well, the four poor trembling beggars were liberated, and carrying the six heads of their comrades, they went back, and their story so terrified the people of Mulifanua that no further attempt was ever made to capture the outlaws. And although the Germans don't know of it, the villagers are to this very day, gentlemen, supplying these dangerous devils with food, and I know for a fact that sometimes two or three of them come down from the mountains and sleep in the village without fear. They have never troubled me; but very often a native boy or girl will come to me and buy a 28-lb. bag of shot, caps and powder, and I know perfectly well that it is for the 'wild men,' as the people here call the escaped men. Every one of them has not only a rifle, but a shot-gun as well, for they one night broke into the plantation store and carried off all the rifles and guns they could find."

"Take care, Bob, that they don't take some pot shots at you," said the captain, with a laugh, as his supercargo rose to get ready to go ashore with the trader.

"They would if they thought Mr. Hemming was a German from the plantation," said the trader, seriously, "so you had better not go too far away when you are shooting, unless you take a native guide with you. For, as I have said before, these men and the people of the village are now, I really believe, in secret friendship, or rather alliance—an alliance born out of terror on one side and savage desperation on the other."

A few minutes later young Flemming and the trader were being pulled ashore.

CHAPTER V

The German manager of the great plantation proved to be, as the old trader had said, "one of the white-men kind of Dutchmen." He received the young supercargo most hospitably, and insisted upon his remaining to lunch, and when Flemming told him frankly of the long quest for the four missing men, he at once became deeply sympathetic.

"You shall see every one of the six or seven hundred natives I have working for me, Mr. Flemming. They are all now scattered about in different portions of the plantation, but at five o'clock, when they knock off, I shall have them all mustered. But I am almost certain that you will not find any one of the nine who were transferred from the Peruvian slaver to the German 'black-birder,' for I have always taken an interest in these people, and know pretty well from where they all come. My predecessor here was very rough with them—the less I say about him the better—and there is now quite a number of runaways living in the bush. They have defied all efforts to capture them. Who they are, and where they come from, I cannot well tell, for the former manager never kept an accurate account of the numbers of new arrivals brought here by the various labour vessels, nor did he specify in his books, as he should have done, from what particular islands they came. 'Natives' he considered to be a sufficient designation, and 'three years' or 'six years' indicated the time for which they were engaged. He left the identification of themselves and their islands to the captains of the various vessels which, at the end of their time, take them back again."

"I wonder if it is possible that the four men I am looking for are among the outlaws," said Flemming.

"Possible, quite possible," replied the manager, "but you will never be able to see them if they are. The gang is very desperate and determined, and though they have no animus against me personally, they would shoot me, or you, or any white man who attempted to get into communication with them."

After a little further conversation with the manager, Flemming said he would have a few hours' pigeon-shooting, returning in time to see the plantation hands mustered. Knorr wished him to take a Samoan guide, but the young man laughingly reminded him that he was half a native himself, and from his infancy almost had been used to wandering about the mountain forests of the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia; so, bidding his host good morning, he shouldered his gun and set off, and in another hour was ascending the first spur of the mountain range, which traverses the island of Upolu from one end to the other.

He had a reason for declining the services of a guide, for he had determined to attempt to reach the outlaws' refuge, and, at the risk of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was Binoké—the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted "Tommy Topsail-tie" of his brother and his sister Medora, the man who, with Jack Waterwitch, had stood to his father and mother in their poverty and distress, and had toiled night and day for them without recompense.

As he walked over the soft carpet of fallen leaves which covered the mountain-side so thickly that no sound came from his footsteps, he listened carefully. He knew that he was proceeding in the right direction for the outlaws' refuge—the direction the plantation manager had impressed on him to avoid—and after a two hours' stiff climb he found himself on the summit of the spur and overlooking the harbour. Far below him he could see the Maori Maid being hauled on to the beach, and eight miles away the beautiful little island of Manono lay basking in the sun on a sea of deepest, glorious blue.

Suddenly he heard a sound, a faint, soft creeping on the ground somewhere near him, and he knew that it was the sound of a human footstep, and that he was watched.

He laid down his gun, and stood up and pretended to closely scan the thick, leafy canopy of the mighty trees overhead, as if he were searching for pigeons. Then his voice rang out clearly, and echoed and re-echoed in the grey and silent forest aisles.

"Binoké, Binoké! 'Tis I! Nobal, Nobal! 'Tis I who call! Tis I, Papu (Bob), of Anaa! I, who have sought thee long. Binoké! Nohal!"

Then came a sudden rush of feet and brown, naked bodies from all around, and in another moment the young man was almost lifted off hid feet by Tommy Topsail-tie, who, clasping his mighty arms around him, pressed him passionately to his bosom.

"My boy, my boy!... See, 'tis I, Binoké, thy friend, thy slave, thy Binoké!" and then the savage creature wept as only wild people such as he was weep from excess of joy.

In a few minutes Flemming was hurried along by the friendly hands of six or eight of the "wild men" to their refuge further up on the mountain-side, where he found not only "Jack Waterwitch," but one of the Anaa natives, who had been carried off ten years before; the other native of Anaa, he was told by Tommy Topsail-tie, had died a year or two previously. There were, he found, twelve natives in all—Topsail-tie, who was their leader, Jack Waterwitch, the Anaa man, four Solomon Islanders, and five others from various islands.

For an hour or more the young man conversed with his old friends, who delightedly agreed to leave their mountain retreat and go on board the brigantine as soon as she was ready to sail. The remaining eight men, however, refused to leave, although Flemming told them that they could all come down from the mountain at night-time, and be very easily stowed away on board, and that even if they were discovered the captain would be able to protect them, should the German manager make any demand for them to be delivered over to him. But all his arguments were in vain—they shook their heads and said that never, again would they go, willingly or unwillingly, upon the