Two Sailor Lads by Gordon Stables

The crew of the derelict brig _Resolute_ had certainly not been idle during the year and a half and over they had been prisoners on the cannibal islands. It was perhaps a lucky day for the natives when their boats drew up upon the beach with the sailors, more dead than alive, without arms or clothes, except what they wore, completely at the mercy of the naked and fierce-looking savages that crowded round them.

Here was a chance for these islanders, such as might not occur again in a score of years. Nothing could be more to their taste than the programme mapped out by their chief, and to be carried out on the following day.

First, Revenge. For they could not forget that long ago a white man's ship had cast anchor in this very bay, and that they had treated the men who landed with kindness and hospitality, albeit they would have preferred picking their bones. They remembered that event, and they did not forget either that in return for their hospitality those white fiends stole their women and their little ones, and put out to sea. Revenge is sweet.

Secondly, a short but bloody massacre of these innocent white men.

And thirdly, a glorious feast of roasted flesh to follow -- a feast of white men's flesh, that they should look back to with satisfaction and delight as long as they lived.

So next morning the island had been all _en gala_. Huge fires were built on which to roast the sailors whole, and big round stones made hot to place in their insides, so that both outside and inside they might be done to a turn.

But, lo! when they had dragged the miserable sailors out of the compound, and everybody was itching to club them, they had found they were little more than skin and bone and grief.

This would never do; they must be fed and fattened. So they were penned in the king's own compound. But somehow they couldn't or wouldn't fatten; and besides, the king began to be mightily entertained with them. Seeing that this was the case, not only the Yankee skipper himself, but his nine men -- all the rest of his crew, by the way, had been drowned -- set themselves to please. They danced, they sang, and they even boxed with each other, all for this sable and savage King Ota's delectation.

Ota soon found out he had drawn a real prize in the lottery of life, and would now no more have consented to kill and eat his prisoners than you, reader, would your pet and expensive pigeons.

But meanwhile another savage king on another island had heard of Ota's luck, and sent to beg for half the white men, that he too might be tickled and amused. Ota replied, saying he would see the other king skinned first.

Well, there was some skinning after this; for that other king invaded Ota's island, and the battle on the beach raged fierce and bloody for many a long hour. The Yankee skipper and his merry men had been obliged to join the fight on Ota's side, and victory was at last obtained. The other king's men fled seaward in their boats, leaving more than a hundred dead and wounded on the beach. But the dreadful cruelties to the prisoners, and the awful orgies that were carried on for many days afterwards, I have no language to describe.

When all the killed were eaten, the bones were taken to "ornament" the kraal of the king, round which the savage soldiers danced and howled for days and nights to the unearthly music of tom-toms and conch-shells, accompanied by rattles made of the dead men's skulls with pebbles in them, and much yelling and brandishing of spears.

This feast, from first to last, was so terrible that the hair of several of the sailors turned white before it ended.

But peace ever since then had reigned in King Ota's island, and he had even become friendly again with the king who lived on the other side of the water. However, Ota would never permit his white men to go on the sea in a boat or canoe. They were too useful to risk. They built him a whole cottage, and taught his people to do many wonderful things. They laid out gardens even, in which yams and sweet potatoes, with cassava root and many other vegetables, flourished most luxuriantly.

But for all the king's kindness to them -- and in a savage kind of way he really did treat them well -- the poor white men pined, and longed to see a ship appear on the horizon.

Every morning of their lives when they left the huts in which they slept, guarded as prisoners, they betook themselves towards the hill-top.

They told Ota they went thither to pray. Well, to their credit be it said, they did pray; but many was the wistful glance they cast seawards in hopes of catching sight of the coming ship.

One morning the ship did heave in sight.

That ship was the little _Island Queen_.

Just an hour after she had first been sighted, Ota, the king, called his prisoners before him.