whereupon Leger started to run off and tell Mrs. MacLaggan that Billy was alive, and on board the Rona, and Denison put out his foot and tripped him, and was at once assailed by Leger’s black wife, who hit him on the head with a stick, and then herself was pushed backwards off the jetty into the water by Mr. O’Brien, taking several children and one of the goats with her, and in less than two minutes there was as pretty a fight as ever was seen.  Several native police ran to help their superior officer, and a lot of dogs came with them; the dogs bit anybody and everybody indiscriminately, but most of them went for Leger and Denison, who were lying gasping together on the jetty, striving to murder each other; then a number of sailors belonging to a whaleship joined in, and tried to massacre or otherwise injure and generally maltreat the policemen, and by the time the boat from the Rona came to the rescue the jetty looked like a battlefield, and one goat was drowned, and the new supercargo was taken on board to have his excoriations attended to, for he was in a very bad state.

That is the end of the story, which I have told in a confused sort of away, I admit, because there are so many things in it, though I could tell a lot more about the adventures of Billy MacLaggan, after he went to sea with Captain Bully Hayes.

An Island Memory

CHAPTER I

From early dawn wild excitement had prevailed in the great native village on the shores of Port Lele, and on board two ships which were anchored on the placid waters of the land-locked harbour.  As the fleecy, cloud-like mist which, during the night, had enveloped the forest-clad spurs and summit of Mont Buache, was dispelled by the first airs of the awakened trade wind and the yellow shafts of sunrise, a fleet or canoes crowded with natives put off from the sandy beach in front of the king’s house, and paddled swiftly over towards the ships, the captains of which only awaited their arrival to weigh and tow out through the passage.

As the mist lifted, Cayse, the master of the Iroquois of Sagharbour, stepped briskly up on the poop, and hailed the skipper of the other vessel, a small, yellow-painted barque of less than two hundred tons.

“Are you ready, Captain Ross?”

“All ready,” was the answer; “only waiting for the military,” and then followed a hoarse laugh.

Cayse, a little, grizzled, and leathern-faced man of fifty, replied by an angry snarl, then turned to his mate, who stood beside him awaiting his orders.

“Get these natives settled down as quickly as possible, Mr. North, then start to heave-up and loose sails.  I reckon we’ll tow out in an hour.  The king will be here presently in his own boat.  Hoist it aboard.”

North nodded in silence, and was just moving on to the main deck, when Cayse stopped him.

“You don’t seem too ragin’ pleased this mornin’, Mr. North, over this business.  Naow, as I told you yesterday, I admire your feelin’s on the subject, but I can’t afford—­”