Nebraska advertiser., 1882-06-08
"LAL" RYDQUIST;
A Story Of the Land and Sea.
by WALTER BEsANT AND JAMES RICE, IN ALL
THE YEAR ROUND.
CHAPTER lX.-CoNT1NUEp.

CHAPTER lX.-CoNTINUED.
They examined every islet of the lit
tie groups. They ventured within the
great lagoon of Hogoleu, a hundred
miles across, where an archipelago of
iSlets lie in the shallow land-locked sea,
clothed with forest. The people came
off To visit them, padding in canoes of
sandal-wood; there were two or three
ships put in for pearls and beche de
mer Then they touched at the Enderby
Islands, the Rovalist Islands, the Swede
Islands, and the Utica Islands.
Perhaps" said Captain Holstius, as
they sighted every one, " he may have
drifted here
But he had not.
To these far-off islands few ships ever
come. Yet from time to time there APP
pears the white sail of trader or u
missionary schooner, or the smoke of
an English war-vessel. The people are
mostly gentle and obliging, when they
recognize that the ship does not come to
carry them off as coolies But to all in
quiries there was but one answer, that
they had no white man among them,
unless it was some poor beach-comber
living among them, and one of them
selves. They knew nothing of any boat.
Worse than ALL Dick shook his head at
every place; and showed no interest in
the inquiries they prosecuted.
A voyage in these seas is not without
danger. They are shallow seas, where
new reefs, new coral islands, and new
shoals are continually being formed, so
that where hundred years ago was safe
sailing, there are now rocks above the
surface, and even islands. There are
earthquakes too, and volcanic eruptions.
There are islands where plantations and
villages have been swallowed up in a
moment, and their places taken by boil
ing lather; in the seas lurk great sharks,
and by the shores are poisonous fish.
The people are not everywhere gentle
and trustful they have learned the vices
of Europe and the treacheries of white
men. They have been known to sur
round becalmed ship and massacre all
on board. Yet Captain Holstius went
among them undaunted and without
fear They did not offer him any injury,
letting him come and go unmolested.
Trust begets trust.
So they sailed from end to end of this
great archipelago and heard no news of
Rex.
Then their hearts began to fail them
But always in the bows sat Dick,
searching the distant horizon, and in his
face there was the look of one who knows
that he is near the place which he would
find.
And one day, after many days sailing
Il think they had been out of San Fran
cisco seventy-tiye days--they observed
a strange thing.
Dick began to grow restless. He bor-
rowed the Captain glasses and looked
through them, though his own eyes
were almost us good. He rambled up
and down the deck continually, scanning
the horizon.
"See," cried Lal, "he knows the
air of this place; he has been here be-
fore. Is there no land in sightP'
None" He gave her the glass.
~ see the line of sea and the blue sky.
There is no land in sight"
Yet what was the meaning of that
restlessnessP BY some sense unknown
to those who have the usual five, the
man who could neither hear nor speak
knew very well that he was near the
place they had come so far to find.
Captain Holstius showed his COM
pdIllOh tlSll pOo'plOh upOh VIC ChdlJ'
1--WE are upon the open sea-" he
said. Here are the Uliea isles two
hundred miles and more from any
where. A little more and we shall be
outside the shallow seas, and in the deep
water again. Lal, we have searched SC
far in vain. He is not in the Carolines,
then where can he bep Nothing is be.
tween us and the Pelews excepting this
little shOal.n
The charts are not always perfect
The little shoal since the chart was
laid down, had become an atoll, with
its reef and its lagoon.
1t was early morning, not long after
sunrise.
While they were looking upon the
chart, which they knew by heart, the
Malay burst into the cabin and seized