222 CHALLENGER 



a tense moment as the canoes came in, for those sailing them did 

 not notice the waders in the general excitement of coming 

 through the breakers, and it was lucky that they were not mown 

 down. The greater part of the island's population had spent the 

 afternoon onboard buying, at the ship's canteen, chocolates, 

 tinned fruit, cigarettes and, of course, talcum powder, of which 

 there now remained no tins whatsoever. 



The inevitable dance took place in the meeting house on the 

 last night ashore, a party of youngsters being employed throughout 

 the evening alternately erecting the thatch screens on the wind- 

 ward side of the building, for it was a wild night, and taking them 

 down again as the dancers called for air after their labours. 



When the campers returned to the court house in the early 

 hours the surveying recorder was absent, but by morning he was 

 with them again. It was many months afterwards before the events 

 of this night reached the Captain's ears. As the Paymaster had 

 been told, sleeping with someone other than one's husband or 

 wife is a punishable offence in the Ellice group, and the attractive 

 girl who had been laid on to sweep the court house was in fact 

 such a prisoner doing her daily prison tasks. The missing man 

 had fallen for the girl and had asked the jailer if he might release 

 her from prison on the night of the dance. This he had absolutely 

 refused to do, fearing retribution from the Kaubures; however, 

 he saw no harm in locking the sailor up inside the prison with the 

 prisoner for the night, releasing him again as dawn crept over the 

 island. 



The scientists had finished their work in the lagoon, the 

 surveyors were content with their sights, farewells were said 

 once again, a frequent and oft-recurring duty on this voyage, and 

 the ship sailed out and away for Manus in the Admiralty Islands, 

 2 000 miles to the westward. 



Tom Gaskell and John Swallow turned to their mass of seismic 

 records — long, narrow sheets of paper with long steady lines, 

 here and there violently interrupted, showing the vital time of 

 returning sound waves from the floor of the lagoon. There was 

 much drawing of graphs in the chartroom, making of computa- 

 tions, gloom as pieces of scientific evidence failed to fit in, 

 excitement and renewed eff^orts when the data began to dove- 



