The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A SECRET OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. 391 was anxious to go with me. He reeled off a yarn that sounded so fishy that I didn’t give him much encouragement, So he sheered off and went aboard a British ship that lay in the roadstead. She sailed that very flood, an’ I reckon he went with her. ‘The yarn he gave me was like this: “He claimed to be the sole survivor of the coal laden bark, Anna Pixley, bound from Sydney to San Francisco. She’d met a heavy blow somewhere off the America group an’ lost her spars, an’ to cap it all, her cargo took fire. The captain and mate was blowed up by an explosion of gas, and in trying to put off from the burning bark in a gale, the other officers and “most of the men lost their lives. ‘The boats was all stove an’ he and his mates built a raft ai’ put off durin’ a lull in the storm. But the raft went to pieces before morning and his comrades went down. “He clung to the wreck of the raft for twenty four hours and then the weather cleared an’ he floated ashore on an island. And, accordin’ to his tell, it was a good sized lump of ground. But it was uninhabited. He said there was the wreck of some craft ina sheltered cove, but not a sign ofa man on the island—or on that part of it he could get to. A good portion of it was unscalable cliffs. Volcanic I s’pose. Lot of them Pacific islands are —what ain’t coral. | “Well, I remember he said he was there some weeks, when one morning he found a boat drawn up on the sand before the hut he’d made for himcelf, and a man waiting for him to come out. This stranger wouldn’t answer any questions about himself, or how he got there in that open boat; but he told him he was going to New Zealand and he could go along, if he liked, and help work the boat. “The man’s craft was a ship’s long boat, furnished with a sail and well provisioned. They made a good passage to Aukland, where the man went to two or three bankers and sold some pearls he had with him, gave the sailor a five pound note, and left in the boat they had come in. The sailor hung around Aukland while his money held out, and when I saw him, being on a lee shore, he wanted to ship again. “ As I say, I didn’t take much stock in his yarn at the time. Two men sailing something like fifteen hundred miles in a ship’s long boat sounded pretty fishy. But afterward, when the banker give me that draft and told me about the man that left it, I wished I’d paid more attention to what the fellow said. ‘he sailor told me the latitude and longitude of the Anna Pixley the day before she foundered, but when I looked at the chart I couldn’t find an island anywhere around the locality. ‘That’s one reason why I didn’t be- lieve him.’’ “And you think this man who brought the sailor to Aukland was my father ?’’ asked Thorne. “ Sure.’ “Tf we only had that sailor he might be able to take you to the very island,’’ suggested Mr. Undercliff. “You say he gave you his vessel’s position a day or so before he saw the island ?’’ queried Howard. ‘‘ Wouldn’t that help us?” ‘A little--if I can remember it. But bless you, I don’t believe I could. Eomichooks.co 3