Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/204

194 cut cruelly into his already lacerated skin. It was like the cinders of a blacksmith's forge, and upon waking in the morning, he was sore and stiff almost beyond endurance.

This was his entrance upon Tobey, a lonely island seven hundred miles from Pelew. It was a new territory, a new world; not so much in its natural aspects as in the character of the inhabitants. They were apparently without many of the human feelings, and without usual means of influence or control.

Holden was fed a small allowance of poi, and the curiosity of the natives gradually wore off. He was beginning to regain his strength, and a certain hopefulness of mind. However, he saw nothing of his mates, who, however, were treated in much the same way, being disposed singly in different places on the island.

In about twenty days he was astonished and overjoyed by the sight of an East Indian merchant ship, appearing early in a morning within a few miles of the shore. This was the signal for a wild rush of the natives to reach the vessel in their canoes, in order to get a present of iron. It was no less thrilling to the castaway Americans, who in their nakedness and feebleness still had no means of reaching the vessel. There was only one course and that was to seize their chance to accompany the canoes, and make their way thus.

This they attempted. Two, the captain, Barnard, and one sailor, Rawlins, almost literally fought their way thither, taking a place in a canoe and refusing to leave, and so threatening and delaying the native boatmen that they preferred to carry them on rather than risk the chance of missing the ship and any little scrap of iron