Maru, A Dream of the Sea

There was the Spanish ship that came into the lagoon when he was seven. The picture of her remained with him, burning and brilliant, yet tinged with the atmosphere of nightmare, a big topsail schooner that lay for a week mirroring herself on the lagoon-water whilst she refitted, fellows with red handkerchiefs tied round their heads crawling aloft and laying out on the spars. They came ashore for water and what they could find in the way of taro and nuts, and made hay on the beach, insulting the island women till the men drove them off. Then when she was clearing the lagoon a brass gun was run out and fired, leaving a score of dead and wounded on that salt white strand.