“Oh, then,” said Zeke quite briskly, “I guess you and Paul had better try the ‘barrel-machine’ —come along, I’ll fix ye out in no time;” and, so saying, he waded ashore, and hurried back to the house, bidding us follow.

Wondering what upon earth the “barrel-machine” could be, and rather suspicious of it, we limped after. On arriving at the house, we found him getting ready a sort of sedan-chair. It was nothing more than an old barrel suspended by a rope from the middle of a stout oar. Quite an ingenious contrivance of the Yankee’s; and his proposed arrangement with regard to mine and the doctor’s shoulders was equally so.

“There now!” said he, when everything was ready, “there’s no back-breaking about this; you can stand right up under it, you see: jist try it once;” and he politely rested the blade of the oar on my comrade’s right shoulder, and the other end on mine, leaving the barrel between us.

“Jist the thing!” he added, standing off admiringly, while we remained in this interesting attitude.

There was no help for us; with broken hearts and backs we trudged back to the field; the doctor all the while saying masses.

Upon starting with the loaded barrel, for a few paces we got along pretty well, and were constrained to think the idea not a bad one. But we did not long think so. In less than five minutes we came to a dead halt, the springing and buckling of the clumsy oar being almost unendurable.

“Let’s shift ends,” cried the doctor, who did not relish the blade of the stick, which was cutting into the blade of his shoulder.

At last, by stages short and frequent, we managed to shamble down the beach, where we again dumped our cargo in something of a pet.

“Why not make the natives help?” asked Long Ghost, rubbing his shoulder.

“Natives be dumned!” said the Yankee, “twenty on ’em ain’t worth one white man. They never was meant to work any, them chaps; and they knows it, too, for dumned little with any on ’em ever does.”

But, notwithstanding this abuse, Zeke was at last obliged to press a few of the bipeds into service. “Aramai!” (come here) he shouted to several, who, reclining on a bank, had hitherto been critical observers of our proceedings; and, among other things, had been particularly amused by the performance with the sedan-chair.

After making these fellows load their baskets together, the Yankee filled his own, and then drove them before him down to the beach. Probably he had seen the herds of panniered mules driven in this way by mounted Indians along the great Callao to Lima.

The boat at last loaded, the Yankee, taking with him a couple of natives, at once hoisted sail, and stood across the channel for Papeetee.

The next morning at breakfast, old Tonoi ran in, and told us that the voyagers were returning. We hurried down to the beach, and saw the boat gliding toward us, with a dozing islander at the helm, and Zeke standing up in the bows, jingling a small bag of silver, the proceeds of his cargo.