Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/189

 way and stood out; but, making no headway against the wind and sea, we anchored a good gunshot from the  shore. Late in the evening the "devils" built fourteen separate fires on the beach opposite our boat. Any ship or boat, or even one of their own canoes, when driven  on shore, was by them considered an offering to the  gods. The crews of these fated crafts, even though they numbered among them the fathers, mothers, brothers,  and sisters of those on shore, were also accounted as  offerings to the gods, and, accordingly, were clubbed,  roasted, and eaten. This, of course, would have been our fate had we been taken.

The savages had quite a number of muskets, and, after building their fires, they waded out on the reef to windward and fired at us, but we were too far away to receive  injury from their volleys, though several of the spent  balls fell in our boat. During the night many of the natives swam out and, diving, tried to lift our anchor or  cut our cable, and thus cause us to drift ashore. We shot quite a number of them and captured two. Of the latter, one proved to be a great chief, the other an inferior one. They had swum towards us to spy out our weakness. We bound them hand and foot and placed them in the bottom of the boat. As soon as those on shore missed their chief they danced and wailed around  their fires like so many fiends.

Sunday morning was ushered in with clear weather and scarcely a breath of wind. At sunrise we got under way and stood out. When going over the bar a big roller came head on, which filled our boat half full of  water, and came very near swamping us. The two chiefs