“Well, sometimes two or three o’ these coolies would mutiny and hide in the woods o’ one o’ the smaller uninhabited islands.  An’ the colonists would have no rest till they hunted them down.  So, to keep matters right, they had to be uncommon strict.  It was made law that no one should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island without permission.  Every man was bound to report himself at the guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time.  So they went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a considerable change—­at first for the worse, but for the better in the long-run.  Provin’ the truth, my lad, of what I was—­well, no—­I was goin’ to draw a moral here, but I won’t!

“It was a cyclone that did the business.  Cyclones have got a free-an’-easy way of makin’ a clean sweep of the work of years in a few hours.  This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin’ Islanders, and Ross—­that’s the second Ross, the son of the first one—­sent home for his son, who was then a student of engineering in Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights.  Ross the third obeyed the call, like a good son,—­observe that, Nigel.”

“All right, father, fire away!”

“Like a good son,” repeated the captain, “an’ he turned out to be a first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after, leavin’ him to do the work alone.  An’ well able was the young engineer to do it.  He got rid o’ the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none but men o’ the best character in their place.  He cleared off the forests and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms.  Got out steam mills, circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general education with a younger brother as head-master—­an’ tail-master too, for I believe there was only one.  He also taught the men to work in brass, iron, and wood, and his wife—­a Cocos girl that he married after comin’ out—­taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the house.  In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as contented and happy as could be.

“In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit.  The barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor.  All the boats were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was made.  Down it came, on the afternoon o’ the 28th—­worse than they had expected.  Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or built.  They were all gutted and demolished.  Everything movable was swept away like bits of paper.  Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them.  In some cases it snapped