There is a tiny islet on the outskirts of the Solomon Archipelago that to all such casual wanderers as stray so far presents not a single feature of interest. Like scores of others in those latitudes, it has not yet attained to the dignity of a single coco-nut tree, although many derelict nuts have found a lodgment upon it, and begun to grow, only to be wiped out of existence at the next spring-tide. Viewed from a balloon it would look like a silly-season mushroom, but with a fringe of snowy foam around it marking the protecting barrier to which it owes its existence, to say nothing of its growth. Yet of all places in the world which I have been privileged to visit, this barren little mound of sand clings most tenaciously to my memory, for reasons which will presently appear.

One of those devastating cyclones that at long intervals sweep across the Pacific, leaving a long swath of destruction in their wake, had overtaken the pearling schooner of which I was mate. For twenty-four hours we fled before it, we knew not whither, not daring to heave-to. The only compass we possessed had been destroyed by the first sea that broke on board. Whether it was night or day we had no notion, except by watch, and even then we were doubtful, so appalling was the darkness. Hope was beginning to revive that, as the Papalangi had proved herself so staunch, she might yet “run it out,” unless she hit something. But the tiny rag rigged forrard to keep her before it suddenly flew into threads; the curl of the sea caught her under the counter and spun her up into the wind like a teetotum. The next vast comber took her broadside-on, rolled her over, and swallowed her up. We went “down quick into the pit.”

Although always reckoned a powerful swimmer, even among such amphibia as the Kanakas, I don’t remember making a stroke. But after a horrible, choking struggle in the black uproar I got my breath again, finding myself clinging, as a drowning man will, to something big and seaworthy. It was an ordinary ship’s hencoop that the skipper had bought cheap from a passenger vessel in Auckland. As good a raft as one could wish, it bore me on over the mad sea, half dead as I was, until I felt it rise high as if climbing a cataract and descend amidst a furious boiling of surf into calm, smooth water. A few minutes later I touched a sandy beach. Utterly done up, I slept where I lay, at the water’s edge, though the shrieking hurricane raged overhead as if it would tear the land up by the roots.

When I awoke it was fine weather, though to leeward the infernal reek of the departing meteor still disfigured a huge segment of the sky. I looked around, and my jaw dropped. Often I had wondered what a poor devil would do who happened to be cast away on such a spot as this. Apparently I was about to learn. A painful pinch at my bare foot startled me, and I saw an ugly beast of a crab going for me. He was nearly a foot across, his blue back covered with long spikes, and his wicked little eyes seemed to have an expression of diabolical malignity. I snatched at a handful of his legs and swung him round my head, dashing him against the side of my coop with such vigour that his armour flew to flinders around me. I never have liked crab, even when dressed, but I found the raw flesh of that one tasty enough—it quite smartened me up. Having eaten heartily, I took a saunter up the smooth knoll of sand, aimlessly, I suppose, for it was as bare as a plate, without a stone or a shell. From its highest point, about ten feet above high-water mark, I looked around, but my horizon was completely bounded by the ring of breakers aforesaid. I felt like the scorpion within the fiery circle, and almost as disposed to sting myself to death had I possessed the proper weapon. As I stood gazing vacantly at the foaming barrier and solemn enclosing dome of fleckless blue, I was again surprised by a vicious nip at my foot. There was another huge crab boldly attacking me—me, a vigorous man, and not a sodden corpse, as yet. I felt a grue of horror run all down my back, but I grabbed at the vile thing and hurled it from me half across the island. Then I became aware of others arriving, converging upon me from all around, and I was panic-stricken. For one mad moment I thought of plunging into the sea again; but reason reasserted itself in time, reminding me that, while I had certain advantages on my side where I was, in the water I should fall a helpless victim at once, if, as might naturally be expected, these ghouls were swarming there. Not a weapon of any kind could I see, neither stick nor stone. My feelings of disgust deepened into despair. But I got little time for thought. Such a multitude of the eerie things were about me that I was kept most actively employed seizing them and flinging them from me. They got bolder, feinting and dodging around me, but happily without any definite plan of campaign among them. Once I staggered forward, having trodden unaware upon a spiky back as I sprung aside, wounding my foot badly. I fell into a group of at least twenty, crushing some of them, but after a painful struggle among those needle-like spines regained my feet with several clinging to my body. A kind of frenzy seized me, and, regardless of pain, I clutched at them right and left, dashing them to fragments one against the other, until quite a pile of writhing, dismembered enemies lay around me, while my hands and arms were streaming from numberless wounds. Very soon I became exhausted by my violent exertions and the intense heat, but, to my unfathomable thankfulness, the heap of broken crabs afforded me a long respite, the sound ones finding congenial occupation in devouring them. While I watched the busy cannibals swarming over the yet writhing heap, I became violently ill, for imagination vividly depicted them rioting in my viscera. Vertigo seized me, I reeled and fell prone, oblivious to all things for a time.

When sense returned it was night. The broad moon was commencing her triumphal march among the stars, which glowed in the blue-black concave like globules of incandescent steel. My body was drenched with dew, a blessed relief, for my tongue was leathery and my lips were split with drouth. I tore off my shirt and sucked it eagerly, the moisture it held, though brackish, mitigating my tortures of thirst. Suddenly I bethought me of my foes, and looked fearfully around. There was not one to be seen, nothing near but the heap of clean-picked shells of those devoured. As the moon rose higher, I saw a cluster of white objects at a little distance, soon recognisable as boobies. They permitted me to snatch a couple of them easily, and wringing off their heads I got such a draught as put new life into me. Hope returned, even quelling the cruel thought of daylight bringing again those ravening hordes of crawling crustacea. Yet my position was almost as hopeless as one could imagine. Unless, as I much doubted, this was a known spot for bÊche de mer or pearl-shell fishers, there was but the remotest chance of my rescue, while, without anything floatable but my poor little hencoop, passing that barrier of breakers was impossible. Fortunately I have always tried to avoid meeting trouble half-way, and with a thankful feeling of present wants supplied, I actually went to sleep again, though stiff and sore from head to heel.

At daybreak I awoke again to a repetition of the agonies of the previous day, which, although I was better fortified to meet them, were greater than before. The numbers of my hideous assailants were more than doubled as far I could judge. The whole patch of sand seemed alive with the voracious vermin. So much so that when I saw the approach of those horrible hosts my heart sank, my flesh shrank on my bones, and I clutched at my throat. But I could not strangle myself, though had I possessed a knife I should certainly have chosen a swift exit from the unutterable horror of my position, fiercely as I clung to life. To be devoured piecemeal, retaining every faculty till the last—I could not bear the thought. There was no time for reflection, however; the struggle began at once and continued with a pertinacity on the part of the crabs that promised a speedy end to it for me. How long it lasted I have no idea—to my tortured mind it was an eternity. At last, overborne, exhausted, surrounded by mounds of those I had destroyed, over which fresh legions poured in ever-increasing numbers, earth and sky whirled around me, and I fell backward. As I went, with many of the vile things already clinging to me, I heard a yell—a human voice that revived my dulling senses like a galvanic shock. With one last flash of vigour I sprang to my feet, seeing as I did so a canoe with four Kanakas in it, not fifty yards away, in the smooth water between the beach and the barrier. Bounding like a buck, heedless of the pain as my wounded feet clashed among the innumerable spiky carapaces of my enemies, I reached the water, and hurled myself headlong towards that ark of safety. How I reached it I do not know, nor anything further until I returned to life again on board the Warrigal of Sydney, as weak as a babe and feeling a century older.