six
o'clock
A small , squat and dirty-looking trading steamer , with the name _ Motutapu _ painted in yellow letters on her bows and stern , lay at anchor off the native village of Utiroa on Drummond 's Island in the Equatorial Pacific . She was about 800 tons burden , and her stained and rusty sides made her appear as if she had been out of port for two years instead of scarcely four months . At this present moment four of her five boats were alongside , each one piled high over the gunwales with bags of copra , which the steam winch was hoisting in as quickly as possible , for night was drawing on and Captain Louis Hendry , who was then ashore , had given orders to the mate , a burly Yorkshireman named Oliver , to be ready to heave up at six o'clock . The day had been intensely hot and windless , the sea lay sweltering , leaden-hued and misty , and the smoke from the native houses in Utiroa village hung low down amid the groves of coco-palms which encompassed it on three sides . On the after-deck of the steamer , under the awning , a man was lying on a bed of mats , with a water-bottle and a plate of bananas beside him . Seated cross-legged beside him was a native boy , about fifteen years of age , who kept fanning his master 's face , and driving away the pestering flies .