THE ^' GLOBE" MUTINY 141 



hands. When, in alarm, he began to struggle, they held him 

 the faster. 



Suddenly an uproar burst out. The astonished boy saw his 

 shipmates fleeing in every direction. At some distance he saw 

 a woman thrust a spear through Columbus Worth, and beat 

 him to death with a stone. He saw the natives overtake Lilli- 

 ston and Joe Brown within six feet of him, and kill them in the 

 same way. 



The old woman and her husband now set Lay's mind at rest 

 so far as their own immediate intentions with regard to himself 

 were concerned ; for they lay down on him to hide him from their 

 fellows, and turned aside the weapon of one who had seen him. 

 But, although they soon got up and led him away, helter-skelter, 

 over the sharp coral, which cruelly cut his bare feet, he still 

 feared that at any moment they might kill him; nor was he 

 completely reassured until he discovered that Cyrus Hussey 

 also had been saved, and in much the same way. 



For nearly two years those boys, guiltless victims of the mu- 

 tiny, lived as prisoners in the hands of the natives. Time 

 and again whalers stopped at the Mulgraves; but always the 

 islanders rushed the boys inland, and kept them hidden until 

 the strangers sailed away. During most of their captivity, 

 indeed, the two were kept on different islands and had no 

 communication with each other. 



The story of their experiences is a strange one. They learned 

 to fish by the methods of the natives, and to dry breadfruit. 

 Once, during an epidemic of a strange disease, for which the 

 natives superstitiously held them responsible, their captors 

 were about to kill them, when happily one of their chiefs de- 

 clared that the plague, instead of being caused by the presence 

 of the white boys, was a punishment inflicted by their god 

 because the natives had murdered the rest of the crew; and he 

 argued the matter with such fervour that he convinced the 

 others. 



Famine came hard on the heels of pestilence, and the weeks 

 of their captivity grew into months. They learned enough 

 of the language of the islands to converse freely in it. They 



