They might, indeed, sail for a year without ever sighting any land; and one storm-driven wave of the great ocean could smite their little egg-shell craft to the bottom of the sea.

They gathered together in the hut and with anxious faces talked of what they might do.  They knew that far off to the southwest lay the islands of Samoa, and Rarotonga.  So they set the bows of their craft southward.  Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening and night, and nothing did they see save the glittering sparkling waters of the uncharted ocean, cut here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting shark.  It was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven times while their wonderful hut-boat crept southward along the water, till the following Friday.  Then the wind changed, and, springing up from the south, drove them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then bore them eastward.

For another week they drove before the breeze, feeding on the cocoa-nuts.  But the water in the calabashes was gone.  Then on the morning of the second Friday, the fourteenth day of their sea-wanderings, just when the sun in mid heaven was blazing its noon-heat upon them and most of the little crew were lying under the shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours of tedious hunger, they heard the cry of “Land!” and leaping to their feet gazed ahead at the welcome sight.  With sail and paddle they urged the craft on toward the island.

Then night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain came and buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles for the bailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat.  Taking down the sails they spread them flat to catch the pouring rain, and then poured this precious fresh water—­true water of life to them—­into their calabashes.  But when morning came no land could be seen anywhere.  It was as though the island had been a land of enchantment and mirage, and now had faded away.  Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next day when land was sighted again; but the sea and the wind, as though driven by the spirits of contrariness, smote them back.

For two more days they guided the canoe with the tiller and tried to set her in one steady direction.  Then, tired and out of heart, after sixteen days of ceaseless and useless effort, they gave it up and let her drift, for the winds and currents to take her where they would.

At night each man stood in his canoe almost starving and parched with thirst, with aching back, stooping to dip the water from the canoe and rising to pour it over the side.  For hour after hour, while the calm moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task.  Lulled by the heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the keels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they stood.  The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old lullaby—­crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, “It is better to lie down and sleep and die than to live and fight and starve.”