His homesickness was greater than ever, and it did not appeal to him
to settle down and be good, work out his four years, and go home. The
next time, he was caught in the very act of running away. His case was
brought before Mr. Haveby, the island manager of the Moongleam Soap
Company, who adjudged him an incorrigible. The Company had plantations
on the Santa Cruz Islands, hundreds of miles across the sea, and there
it sent its Solomon Islands' incorrigibles. And there Mauki was sent,
though he never arrived. The schooner stopped at Santa Anna, and in
the night Mauki swam ashore, where he stole two rifles and a case of
tobacco from the trader and got away in a canoe to Cristoval. Malaita
was now to the north, fifty or sixty miles away. But when he attempted
the passage, he was caught by a light gale and driven back to Santa
Anna, where the trader clapped him in irons and held him against the
return of the schooner from Santa Cruz. The two rifles the trader
recovered, but the case of tobacco was charged up to Mauki at the rate
of another year. The sum of years he now owed the Company was six.

On the way back to New Georgia, the schooner dropped anchor in Marau
Sound, which lies at the southeastern extremity of Guadalcanar. Mauki
swam ashore with handcuffs on his wrists and got away to the bush. The
schooner went on, but the Moongleam trader ashore offered a thousand
sticks, and to him Mauki was brought by the bushmen with a year and
eight months tacked on to his account. Again, and before the schooner
called in, he got away, this time in a whale boat accompanied by a
case of the trader's tobacco. But a northwest gale wrecked him upon
Ugi, where the Christian natives stole his tobacco and turned him over
to the Moongleam trader who resided there. The tobacco the natives
stole meant another year for him, and the tale was now eight years and
a half.