"The mate went out of the passage in his little boat, and that was the
end of him we made sure, for how could so small a boat, with four men
in it, live on the ocean? A month went by, and then, one morning,
between two rain squalls, a schooner sailed in through our passage and
dropped anchor before the village. The king and the headmen made big
talk, and it was agreed that we would take the schooner in two or
three days. In the meantime, as it was our custom always to appear
friendly, we went off to her in canoes, bringing strings of cocoanuts,
fowls, and pigs, to trade. But when we were alongside, many canoes of
us, the men on board began to shoot us with rifles, and as we paddled
away I saw the mate who had gone to sea in the little boat spring upon
the rail and dance and yell, Yah! Yah! Yah!'

"That afternoon they landed from the schooner in three small boats
filled with white men. They went right through the village, shooting
every man they saw. Also they shot the fowls and pigs. We who were not
killed got away in canoes and paddled out into the lagoon. Looking
back, we could see all the houses on fire. Late in the afternoon we
saw many canoes coming from Nihi, which is the village near the Nihi
Passage in the northeast. They were all that were left, and like us
their village had been burned by a second schooner that had come
through Nihi Passage.

"We stood on in the darkness to the westward for Pauloo, but in the
middle of the night we heard women wailing and then we ran into a big
fleet of canoes. They were all that were left of Pauloo, which
likewise was in ashes, for a third schooner had come in through the
Pauloo Passage. You see, that mate, with his black boys, had not been
drowned. He had made the Solomon Islands, and there told his brothers
of what we had done in Oolong. And all his brothers had said they