“Who are you?”

“Samoa,” at length said a clear, firm voice.

“Come down from the rigging.  We are friends.”

Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended, holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his musket partly slung from his back, and partly griped under the stump of his mutilated arm.

He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his weapon, eyed us bravely as the Cid.

He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically arrayed in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban of a red China silk.  His neck was jingling with strings of beads.

“Who else is on board?” I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.

“Look there:—­Annatoo!” was his reply in broken English, pointing aloft to the fore-top.  And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring her skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.

“Any more?”

“No more.”

“Who are you then; and what craft is this?”

“Ah, ah—­you are no ghost;—­but are you my friend?” he cried, advancing nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck, also approached, eagerly glancing.

We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know what craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that something untoward had occurred, we were certain.

Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful had happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the truth.  And about it he went.

Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a Polynesian sailor.  With a few random reflections, in substance, it will be found in the six following chapters.

CHAPTER XXII What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands

The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there drifted ashore.

Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands.  With a mixed European and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four whites in all, captain included), the Parki, some four months previous, had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other matters of that sort.

Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea, and was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine mysteries.  The native Lahineese on board were immediately subordinate to him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their services as divers.