Since first the islands were fished out of the sea, there was never a man so terrified as this Keola.  He swam indeed, but he swam as puppies swim when they are cast in to drown, and knew not wherefore.  He could but think of the hugeness of the swelling of the warlock, of that face which was great as a mountain, of those shoulders that were broad as an isle, and of the seas that beat on them in vain.  He thought, too, of the concertina, and shame took hold upon him; and of the dead men’s bones, and fear shook him.

Of a sudden he was aware of something dark against the stars that tossed, and a light below, and a brightness of the cloven sea; and he heard speech of men.  He cried out aloud and a voice answered; and in a twinkling the bows of a ship hung above him on a wave like a thing balanced, and swooped down.  He caught with his two hands in the chains of her, and the next moment was buried in the rushing seas, and the next hauled on board by seamen.

They gave him gin and biscuit and dry clothes, and asked him how he came where they found him, and whether the light which they had seen was the lighthouse, Lae o Ka Laau.  But Keola knew white men are like children and only believe their own stories; so about himself he told them what he pleased, and as for the light (which was Kalamake’s lantern) he vowed he had seen none.

This ship was a schooner bound for Honolulu, and then to trade in the low islands; and by a very good chance for Keola she had lost a man off the bowsprit in a squall.  It was no use talking.  Keola durst not stay in the Eight Islands.  Word goes so quickly, and all men are so fond to talk and carry news, that if he hid in the north end of Kauai or in the south end of Kau, the wizard would have wind of it before a month, and he must perish.  So he did what seemed the most prudent, and shipped sailor in the place of the man who had been drowned.

In some ways the ship was a good place.  The food was extraordinarily rich and plenty, with biscuits and salt beef every day, and pea-soup and puddings made of flour and suet twice a week, so that Keola grew fat.  The captain also was a good man, and the crew no worse than other whites.  The trouble was the mate, who was the most difficult man to please Keola had ever met with, and beat and cursed him daily, both for what he did and what he did not.  The blows that he dealt were very sore, for he was strong; and the words he used were very unpalatable, for Keola was come of a good family and accustomed to respect.  And what was the worst of all, whenever Keola found a chance to sleep, there was the mate awake and stirring him up with a rope’s end.  Keola saw it would never do; and he made up his mind to run away.

They were about a month out from Honolulu when they made the land.  It was a fine starry night, the sea was smooth as well as the sky fair; it blew a steady trade; and there was the island on their weather bow, a ribbon of palm trees lying flat along the sea.  The captain and the mate looked at it with the night glass, and named the name of it, and talked of it, beside the wheel where Keola was steering.  It seemed it was an isle where no traders came.  By the captain’s way, it was an isle besides where no man dwelt; but the mate thought otherwise.