which he thrust into his pocket. Lifting his great fist he

uttered some Danish oath and with a single blow smashed the
planchette to fragments, after which he strode away, leaving me

astonished and somewhat disturbed. When I met him the next
morning I asked him what was on the paper.

"Oh!" he said quietly, "something I should not like you too-
proper English gentlemens to see. Something not nice. You

understand. Those spirits not always good; they do that kind of
thing sometimes. That's why I broke up this planchette."

Then he began to talk of something else and there the matter
ended.

I should have said that, principally with a view to putting
themselves in a position to confute each other, ever since we had

started from Marseilles both Bastin and Bickley spent a number of
hours each day in assiduous study of the language of the South

Sea Islands. It became a kind of petition" target="_blank" title="n.比赛；竞争">competition between them as to
which could learn the most. Now Bastin, although simple and even

stupid in some ways, was a good scholar, and as I knew at
college, had quite a faculty for acquiring languages in which he

had taken high marks at examinations. Bickley, too, was an
extraordinarily able person with an excellent memory, especially

when he was on his mettle. The result was that before we ever
reached a South Sea island they had a good working knowledge of

the local tongues.
As it chanced, too, at Perth we picked up a Samoan and his wife

who, under some of the "white Australia" regulations, were not
allowed to remain in the country and offered to work as servants

in return for a passage to Apia where we proposed to call some
time or other. With these people Bastin and Bickley talked all

day long till really they became fairly proficient in their soft
and beautiful dialect. They wished me to learn also, but I said

that with two such excellent interpreters and the natives while
they remained with us, it seemed quite unnecessary. Still, I

picked up a good deal in a quiet way, as much as they did
perhaps.

At length, travelling on and on as a voyager to the planet Mars
might do, we sighted the low shores of Australia and that same

evening were towed, for our coal was quite exhausted, to the
wharf at Fremantle. Here we spent a few days exploring the

beautiful town of Perth and its neighbourhood where it was very
hot just then, and eating peaches and grapes till we made

ourselves ill, as a visitor often does who is unaware that fruit
should not be taken in quantity in Australia while the sun is

high. Then we departed for Melbourne almost before our arrival
was generally known, since I did not wish to advertise our

presence or the object of our journey.
We crossed the Great Australian Bight, of evil reputation, in

the most perfect weather; indeed it might have been a mill pond,
and after a short stay at Melbourne, went on to Sydney, where we

coaled again and laid in supplies.
Then our real journey began. The plan we laid out was to sail

to Suva in Fiji, about 1,700 miles away, and after a stay there,
on to Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands, stopping perhaps at the

Phoenix Islands and the Central Polynesian Sporades, such as
Christmas and Fanning Isles. Then we proposed to turn south again

through the Marshall Archipelago and the Caroline Islands, and so
on to New Guinea and the Coral Sea. Particularly did we wish to

visit Easter Island on account of its marvelous sculptures that
are supposed to be the relics of a preeminent-historic race. In truth,

however, we had no fixed plan except to go wherever circumstance
and chance might take us. Chance, I may add, or something else,

took full advantage of its opportunities.
We came to Suva in safety and spent a while in exploring the

beautiful Fiji Isles where both Bastin and Bickley made full
inquiries about the work of the missionaries, each of them

drawing exactly opposite conclusions from the same set of
admitted facts. Thence we steamed to Samoa and put our two

natives ashore at Apia, where we procured some coal. We did not
stay long enough in these islands to investigate them, however,

because persons of experience there assured us from certain
familiar signs that one of the terrible hurricanes with which

they are afflicted, was due to arrive shortly and that we should
do well to put ourselves beyond its reach. So having coaled and

watered we departed in a hurry.
Up to this time I should state we had met with the most

wonderful good fortune in the matter of weather, so good indeed
that never on one occasion since we left Marseilles, had we been

obliged to put the fiddles on the tables. With the superstition
of a sailor Captain Astley, when I alluded to the matter, shook

his head saying that doubtless we should pay for it later on,
since "luck never goes all the way" and cyclones were reported to

be about.
Here I must tell that after we were clear of Apia, it was

discovered that the Danish mate who was believed to be in his
cabin unwell from something he had eaten, was missing. The

question arose whether we should put back to find him, as we
supposed that he had made a trip inland and met with an accident,

or been otherwise delayed. I was in favour of doing so though the
captain, thinking of the threatened hurricane, shook his head and

said that Jacobsen was a queer fellow who might just as well have
gone overboard as anywhere else, if he thought he heard "the

spirits, of whom he was so fond," calling him. While the matter
was still in suspense I happened to go into my own stateroom and

there, stuck in the looking-glass, saw an envelope in the Dane's
handwriting addressed to myself. On opening it I found another

sealed letter, unaddressed, also a note that ran as follows:
"Honoured Sir,

"You will think very badly of me for leaving you, but the
enclosed which I implore you not to open until you have seen the

last of the Star of the South, will explain my reason and I hope
clear my reputation. I thank you again and again for all your

kindness and pray that the Spirits who rule the world may bless
and preserve you, also the Doctor and Mr. Bastin."

This letter, which left the fate of Jacobsen quite unsolved,
for it might mean either that he had deserted or drowned himself,

I put away with the enclosure in my pocket. Of course there was
no obligation on me to refrain from opening the letter, but I

shrank from doing so both from some kind of sense of honour and,
to tell the truth, for fear of what it might contain. I felt that

this would be disagreeable; also, although there was nothing to
connect them together, I bethought me of the scene when Jacobsen

had smashed the planchette.
On my return to the deck I said nothing whatsoever about the

discovery of the letter, but only remarked that on reflection I
had changed my mind and agreed with the captain that it would be

unwise to attempt to return in order to look for Jacobsen. So the
boatswain, a capable individual who had seen better days, was

promoted to take his watches and we went on as before. How
curiously things come about in the world! For nautical reasons

that were explained to me, but which I will not trouble to set
down, if indeed I could remember them, I believe that if we had

returned to Apia we should have missed the great gale and
subsequent cyclone, and with these much else. But it was not so

fated.
It was on the fourth day, when we were roughly seven hundred

miles or more north of Samoa, that we met the edge of this gale
about sundown. The captain put on steam in the hope of pushing

through it, but that night we dined for the first time with the