“I wonder what has happened,” said Bastin.  “I suppose that, thanks to the skill of the captain, we have after all reached the haven where we would be.”

Here he stopped, rubbed his eyes and looked towards the saloon door which, as I have said, had been wrenched off its hinges, but appeared to have opened wider than when I observed it last.  Also Tommy, who was recovering his spirits, uttered a series of low growls.

“It is a most curious thing,” he went on, “and I suppose I must be suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and libellous book was indirectly the cause of our tempestuous voyage.”

“Indeed!” replied Bickley.  “Well, so long as she has not got on the broken-down stays and the Salvation Army bonnet without a crown, which you may remember she wore after she had fallen into the hands of your fraternity, I am sure I do not mind.  In fact I should be delighted to see anything so pleasant.”

At this moment a distinct sound of female tittering arose from beyond the door.  Tommy barked and Bickley stepped towards it, but I called to him.

“Look out!  Where there are women there are sure to be men.  Let us be ready against accidents.”

So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did, Bastin being fortified solely with a Bible.

Then we advanced, a remarkable and dilapidated trio, and dragged the door wide.  Instantly there was a scurry and we caught sight of women’s forms wearing only flowers, and but few of these, running over white sand towards groups of men armed with odd-looking clubs, some of which were fashioned to the shapes of swords and spears.  To make an impression I fired two shots with my revolver into the air, whereupon both men and women fled into groves of trees and vanished.

“They don’t seem to be accustomed to white people,” said Bickley.  “Is it possible that we have found a shore upon which no missionary has set a foot?”

“I hope so,” said Bastin, “seeing that unworthy as I am, then the opportunities for me would be very great.”

We stood still and looked about us.  This was what we saw.  All the after part of the ship from forward of the bridge had vanished utterly; there was not a trace of it; she had as it were been cut in two.  More, we were some considerable distance from the sea which was still raging over a quarter of a mile away where great white combers struck upon a reef and spouted into the air.  Behind us was a cliff, apparently of rock but covered with earth and vegetation, and against this cliff, in which the prow of the ship was buried, she, or what remained of her, had come to anchor for the last time.

“You see what has happened,” I said.  “A great tidal wave has carried us up here and retreated.”

“That’s it,” exclaimed Bickley.  “Look at the debris,” and he pointed to torn-up palms, bushes and seaweed piled into heaps which still ran salt water; also to a number of dead fish that lay about among them, adding, “Well, we are saved anyhow.”