Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.We sight a strange sail.Having secured possession of the brig, and succeeded in coercing me to become their navigator to some island in the Pacific, the locality of which they had as yet kept secret, upon an errand the nature of which they had not seen fit to divulge to me, the crew at once went industriously to work, under O’Gorman, to put the vessel all ataunto once more, by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards, bending new sails, overhauling and making good the rigging, and, in short, repairing all damage of every description; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do, and, so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned, there was nothing to show that anything had ever been wrong with her.Meanwhile, during the progress of this renovating process, the steward had made it his business to give the lazarette a thorough stock-taking overhaul, of the result of which I was kept ignorant. But I gathered that the examination was not altogether satisfactory; for when it was over, and the steward had made his report to O’Gorman, the latter came to me and anxiously demanded to know what our distance then was from the Horn. This was on the afternoon of the third day after the seizure of the brig, and upon carefully measuring off the distance from our position at noon on that day, I found that it amounted to three thousand seven hundred and some odd miles. The distance seemed to be a staggerer to the fellow, and when, in reply to a further question, I informed him that he might reckon upon the brig taking nearly or quite a month to cover it, he made no attempt to conceal his dismay. That something was radically wrong at once became apparent, for there were long conclaves in the forecastle, the object of which, presumably, was to determine how to meet the emergency. I shrewdly suspected that this emergency arose out of the unexpected discovery that the brig’s stock of provisions, or water, or both, was insufficient to carry us to our destination; and I fervently hoped that my conjecture might prove correct, as in that case we should be compelled to touch somewhere to renew our stock; and I felt that if in such a case I failed to secure the arrest of the whole party for piracy I should richly deserve to remain their tool, exposed to the countless vacillating and dangerous humours of a gang of ruffians who had deliberately thrown off every restraint of law and order.But, in speculating thus, I was reckoning without my hosts; I was crediting O’Gorman and his satellites with scruples that they did not possess. I had not yet fully gauged the villainy of which they were capable.Thus far, ever since we had borne up for the Horn, we had been favoured with a fair wind, and plenty of it; but on the second day after the occurrence of the above events the wind began to fail us, and by sunset that night it had dwindled away until the brig had barely steerage-way, while the surface of the ocean presented that streaky, oily appearance that is usually the precursor of a flat calm. Meanwhile, during the afternoon, a sail had hove in sight in the north-western board, steering south-east; and when the sun went down in a clear haze of ruddy gold, the sails of the stranger, reddened by the last beams of the luminary, glowed against the clear opal tints of the north-western sky at a distance of some eight miles, broad on our starboard bow.The stranger was a barque-rigged vessel of some three hundred and fifty tons or so: quite an ordinary, everyday-looking craft, with nothing whatever of an alarming character in her aspect; yet she had not long been in sight when it became quite apparent that O’Gorman and his crew were greatly exercised at her appearance; and I was at first disposed to imagine that their emotion arose from the circumstance of their being fully aware that, in seizing the brig, as they had done, they had committed an act of piracy, and that they now feared detection and its attendant unpleasant consequences. But by sunset I had found occasion to alter my opinion, for it had by then become evident that O’Gorman was manoeuvring, not to avoid but to close with the stranger in such a manner as to avoid arousing any suspicion as to his design!No sooner did this intention of O’Gorman’s become apparent than I began to ask myself what could be his motive for such a course; and the only satisfactory reply that I could find to such a question was that he wished to ascertain whether her skipper had any provisions to spare, and, if so, to endeavour to treat with him for their purchase—I had by this time seen enough of O’Gorman to recognise that he was quite acute enough to discern the advantage and safety which such a transaction would afford him over the alternative of being compelled to touch at some port, and I had little doubt that my surmise as to his intentions would prove correct. At all events, his determination to speak the barque was evident, and I began to cast about for some means whereby the encounter might be utilised to the advantage of Miss Onslow and myself.There were two or three ways in which we might possibly be benefited by the incident, if only I could contrive to establish private communication with the skipper of the stranger. In the first place, if the barque happened to be British—of which, however, I had my doubts—I might make her skipper acquainted with all the circumstances relating to the brig’s seizure, and appeal to him to compel the Irishman and his gang—by force, if necessary—to surrender Miss Onslow and myself. Or, if that should prove impossible, I might perhaps be able to secure Miss Onslow’s transfer to the stranger, when—her safety having been assured—it would matter comparatively little what happened to myself. Or—in the event of both these schemes failing—I might possibly succeed in privately arranging with the skipper to acquaint the authorities with our predicament and request them to take the necessary steps to effect our rescue.One or another of these plans I might perhaps succeed in putting into effect, provided that the Irishman should prove careless and neglectful enough to permit of my communicating with the skipper of the barque. But would he be so? I very much doubted it. Yet I could but try; and if, as I anticipated, I should find it impossible to obtain private speech with the skipper of the barque, I might still be able to surreptitiously convey to him a letter which would serve my purpose quite as well.Meditating thus, I made my way below to the brig’s snug little cabin, with the intention of forthwith inditing my epistle, and there I found Miss Onslow, seated upon one of the lockers, ostensibly engaged in reading, but with her beautiful eyes fixed upon the gently-swaying lamp that hung in the skylight, with a dreamy, absent look in them that showed her thoughts to be far away.“Do you happen to know whether the steward is in his pantry, Miss. Onslow?” I asked, with a glance in the direction of the apartment named, as I entered the cabin.“No; he is not there; he went on deck nearly an hour ago,” she replied. “Do you want anything, Mr Conyers?”“Nothing more at present than a few minutes’ privacy and freedom from espionage,” I answered. “Listen, Miss Onslow,” I continued, “I have been engaged for the last two hours in quietly observing the manoeuvres of O’Gorman, and I have come to the conclusion that he intends to close with and speak the barque that has been in sight all the afternoon. Now, such a proceeding may, or may not, be to our advantage. If I can succeed in effecting communication with her skipper, it may be possible for us to accomplish one of three things: First, we may, with the assistance of the barque’s crew, be enabled to effect our escape from these people altogether. Or, if that should prove impracticable, we may possibly be enabled to secureyourtransfer to the barque. Or,ifthat attempt also should fail, we surely ought to be able, with the help of the barque’s people, to communicate with the authorities ashore, and claim from them rescue from our present precarious and exceedingly unpleasant situation.”“Y–e–es,” my companion assented meditatively. Then, after a slight pause, she asked:“Have you ever thought of what the end of this adventure is likely to be, so far as we two are concerned, supposing that we should fail to effect our escape from O’Gorman and his companions?”“Certainly, the matter is never absent from my thoughts,” I answered. “We are bound—upon what I cannot help thinking a fool’s errand—to some island in the Pacific, upon which O’Gorman and his party expect to find a certain treasure. This treasure they either will or willnotfind; but in either case I anticipate that, so far asweare concerned, the adventure will end in our being landed somewhere at a sufficient distance from a town to permit of O’Gorman getting clear away with the brig before we should have time to give the alarm and secure his capture.”“That, of course, is assuming that you carry out these men’s wishes, without giving them any trouble,” commented Miss Onslow. “But,” she continued, “what, do you imagine, is likely to be the result—the effect upon us both—if you cause them trouble and anxiety by endeavouring to escape? They have made it perfectly evident to you that theycannotdispense with your services. Do you really think it worth our while to irritate and provoke them by attempting to escape? True, they are exceedingly unpleasant people to be brought into such close and constant contact with, but there seems to be no great harm in them, provided that they are allowed to have their own way.”“Ah!” I exclaimed, “you evidently do not know of what a ship’s crew may become capable when once they have committed so serious a crime as piracy—for that is what they have done in taking this brig from me. It is not what these men are, now, but what they may become in the future, of which I am thinking, especially so far as you are concerned. I recognise possibilities in the future that may make this brig the scene of hourly peril to you of a nature that I shudder to think of, and it isyoursafety that I am concerned about; that assured, I could face the rest with equanimity.”“Thank you. It is exceedingly good and kind of you to think so much for me, and so little for yourself,” answered my companion. She spoke with her face turned away from me, so that I was unable to read its expression, and her voice had an intonation that I would have given much to have been able to translate. Was it merely my imagination—I asked myself—or was there really a recurrent shade of her former hauteur of manner, mingled with just the faintest suggestion of irony and impatience? The fact is that I was at that moment as far from being able to comprehend this lovely but inscrutable woman as when I met her for the first time in the saloon of theCity of Cawnpore: her moods were as changeable as the weather: there were occasions when her manner toward me was almost as warm and genial and sympathetic as even a lover could require; while there were others when she appeared animated by a set purpose to impress upon me the conviction that our remarkable adventure together invested me with no claim whatever upon her beyond that of the merest ordinary gratitude. As for me, if I have not already allowed the fact to leak out, I may as well here make a clean breast of it and confess that I loved her with all the ardent passion of which a man’s heart is capable, and I was resolutely determined to win her love in return; but up to the moment of which I am now speaking I seemed to have made so little headway that I often doubted whether I had made any at all. I had, however, come at length to recognise that the rebuffs I occasionally met with followed some speech or action of mine of which the young lady did not wholly approve; and so I soon found it to be in the present instance. She remained silent for perhaps half a minute after speaking the words the recounting of which has extorted from me the above explanation, and then continued, with much greater cordiality:“Believe me, Mr Conyers, I am sincerely grateful to you for your perfectly evident anxiety on my account; but I am obliged to confess that I do not regard our situation as nearly so desperate as you seem to do; I do not think that either of us will have anything to fear from O’Gorman and his companions if you will but reconcile yourself to the performance of the task that they have imposed upon you. What Idoreally fear is what may happen if you wilfully exasperate them by making any attempt to thwart their plans by depriving them of your assistance—without which, I would remind you again, they can do nothing. Help them to carry through their undertaking—never mind whether or not it be a fool’s errand—and I have every confidence that they will treat us with the utmost consideration, after their own rough fashion; but seriously provoke them, and, I ask you, what are likely to be the consequences to us both? Of course if you can so contrive it that we canbothbe rescued by the ship in sight, I shall be more delighted than I can say; but as to your attempting to getmetransferred to heralone—you will think it strange, unaccountable, perhaps, but I feel so very much more safe here, with you to protect me, than I should on board the strange ship,alone, that if you are to remain here I would very much rather remain with you.”Words calculated to send the blood of an ardent lover throbbing through his veins like quicksilver, are they not? Yet they excited not one atom of jubilation in me, for they were uttered in a tone of such coldness and indifference that I felt as certain as I could be of anything that it was wholly of herself, and not at all of me, that the speaker was thinking.“Very well,” I answered, steeling myself to the adoption of an equally cold manner of speech; “I think I understand your wishes in this matter, and will endeavour to carry them out; if the strangers yonder can be induced to take usbothout of the hands of these ruffians, well and good; if not, I am to take no other steps?”She bowed acquiescence, and turned to her book once more, with a manner indicating that the discussion was at an end; and I, accepting the hint, retired at once to my cabin to prepare a letter addressed to the skipper of the stranger, to be conveyed to him if opportunity should permit.But although I had yielded a seeming acquiescence to Miss Onslow’s misguided wish to share my captivity—should it be continued—aboard the brig, it must not be supposed that I had any intention of lending myself to so terribly dangerous and mistaken a proceeding. It was perfectly clear to me that the high-spirited girl had, in some unaccountable way, completely missed the point of my remarks, and utterly failed to comprehend the frightfully precarious and perilous character of her position aboard the brig; moreover, her mere presence there served O’Gorman as a lever and a menace powerful enough to constrain me irresistibly to the most abject submission to his will; so long as she remained where she was, in the power of these ruffians, I could do absolutely nothing, for fear of what they might inflict upon her by way of revenge; but with her removed from their power, and placed in safety, I might possibly be able to bring every one of the wretches into the grip of the law that they had so audaciously defied. And so, when I began to pen my letter to the unknown skipper, I was careful—after briefly describing our peculiar situation—to appeal to him, as powerfully as I could, to effect the rescue of the girl by any means at his command, regardless of what might become of me.Having at length finished my letter, I folded it up into a suitably small and compact form, placed it by itself in one of my pockets, in readiness to transfer it at the first favourable opportunity to the individual for whom it was intended, and then, filling my pipe, made my way leisurely up on deck to take a look round and see in what direction matters were trending.It was a magnificently fine and brilliant moon-lit night, with only a few small, scattered shreds of light fleecy cloud floating overhead, and a soft, warm air breathing out from the north-east so gently that it scarcely stirred the oil-smooth surface of the ocean, which indeed it only touched here and there in faint, evanescent cat’s-paws that barely sufficed to give the brig steerage-way with squared yards and every possible inch of canvas spread. As for the barque, she was now about a point on the starboard bow, not more than a mile distant, and was evidently not under command, as she had swung round head to wind, and lay there in the bright moonlight swaying with an almost imperceptible swing over the long, low hummocks of glassy swell, with her canvas—gleaming softly and spectrally under the showering moonbeams. All hands—O’Gorman included—except the man at the wheel, were on the forecastle-head, intently watching her, and talking eagerly together, so I had a good opportunity to take a leisurely survey of her, and draw my conclusions as to her nationality. I went to the companion, secured the night-glass, and took a good look at her; with the result that I concluded her to be of French or Italian nationality—rather an awkward and unexpected development for me, I having foolishly taken it for granted that she would prove to be British and written my letter in English accordingly. And yet, perhaps, if my surmise should prove to be correct, I might be afforded a better opportunity to make an effective appeal for assistance than if the craft were British, for I gravely doubted whether O’Gorman or any of his people spoke French or Italian, and if that were the case they would probably require me to act as interpreter for them, and thus afford me just such an opportunity as I desired. On the other hand, I could not but feel that an appeal for help, made to a French or an Italian crew, was much less likely to meet with a favourable response than if made to a crew of Britons.These reflections passed through my mind as I stood peering through the tube at the becalmed barque; it did not need a very prolonged scrutiny to enable me to learn all that was possible of her at that distance, and presently I replaced the glass in its beckets, and proceeded to saunter fore and aft the deck, from the wake of the main rigging to the wheel grating, smoking meditatively the while.By the time that I had smoked my pipe out we had neared the barque to within less than half, a mile; and I was momentarily expecting to hear O’Gorman give the order to round-to and lower away the boat—wondering, meanwhile, how on earth I could possibly contrive to get my letter conveyed to the skipper—when the Irishman came shambling aft and, placing himself at my side, inquired:“Well, misther, have you finished your shmoke?”“Yes,” I answered curtly. “Why do you ask the question, pray?”“Because,” he replied, “I’ll have to ask ye to just step down belowand stay there for the rest of the night!”“To step down below—and stay there?” I repeated indignantly. “What do you mean, man? Surely I am not to be sent to my bunk like a child, whether I wish to go or not?”“Bedad, but ye are thin; so make no more bones about it!” he retorted, with quickly-rising anger.“But, my good fellow, this is preposterous,”—I began, thoroughly exasperated at such treatment, and keenly anxious not to lose even the most slender chance of communicating with the strangers. But the fellow would permit no argument, his quick temper caught fire instantly at the merest suggestion of remonstrance on my part, and he cut me short by exclaiming furiously:“Howly Sailor! Phwhat’s the use av’ talkin’ about it? Ye’ve got to go below, and that’s all there is about it. Will ye go p’aceably, or will I have to call some of the hands aft tomakeye go?”Again did I feel that terrible, overpowering sensation of murderous anger grip at my heart, as it had already done once before in an altercation with this brutal ruffian, the blood again mounted to my head like fire, and, reckless of all consequences, I was in the very act of pulling myself together for a spring at his throat, when I felt a small hand—the touch of which thrilled me, even at that moment—laid upon my arm, and Miss Onslow’s voice—pitched in its most seductive tones—said:“Will you please come with me at once—at once—Mr Conyers? I have something of the utmost importance to say to you!”With an effort that caused me to turn sick and giddy, I mastered the impulse that urged me to strike my enemy dead, there and then, and, mute with the intensity of my feelings, permitted my companion to lead me away. We descended the companion ladder in silence; and upon reaching the cabin Miss Onslow—as upon a former occasion—led me to one of the sofa-lockers, upon which she seated herself, gently drawing me down beside her. Then, looking anxiously into my face, she said:“Mr Conyers, I could almost find it in my heart to be angry with you. Why—oh,whywill you persist in laying yourself open to such insults from that great, coarse brute, by condescending to argue with him? What is the use of doing so? Surely you must realise, by this time, that you are quite powerless in the hands of these men, and that you cannot control or influence them in any way. Then, why attempt to do it? The only result is that you are insulted, and at once become positively mad with anger, under the influence of which you will some day—unless you are very careful—do something that you will be exceedingly sorry for. For instance, what would have happened, had I not fortunately chanced to have gone on deck the moment that I heard you and that Irish ruffian in conversation?”“You are right—perfectly right,” I answered; “and you make me feel very heartily ashamed of myself for my lamentable want of self-control—of which I will take especial care that henceforward there shall be no repetition. Of course I can see clearly enough, now, how positively suicidal it would have been for me to have yielded to the impulse that animated me at the moment when you so fortunately came upon the scene—suicidal for myself, and ruinously disastrous foryou—which circumstance will, I assure you, amply suffice as an effectual check upon me for the future. We are but two against sixteen, and common sense tells me that, with such odds against us, violence is out of the question; we must depend upon craft and diplomacy to secure our ends.”“Oh! I amsoglad to find you taking a reasonable view of our most unfortunate situation,” exclaimed my companion, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Of course,” she continued, “I can easily understand how terribly exasperating it must be to you—a naval officer, who has always hitherto been accustomed to the most implicit obedience on the part of your crew—to find yourself defied and insulted by these wretches, and I am not at all surprised that, under such circumstances, you find the provocation all but unendurable; but I am sure you are right in believing, as you say, that we must fight by diplomatic means rather than by a resort to brute force. I feel sure that the latter would be a terrible mistake on our part, and I will not attempt to deny that on the two occasions when you seemed about to resort to such means, I have been most horribly frightened.”“Yes,” I exclaimed, with profound contrition, “I can quite understand that you would be so; and I very humbly beg your pardon for having so terrified you. I have been contemptibly weak at the very moment when I most needed to be strong; but have no further fear; you have effectually cured me of my weakness. And, now, you may as well tell me what was the important matter upon which you so urgently desired to speak to me.”For a moment my companion gazed at me with a most bewitching expression of perplexity in her glorious eyes; then her face lighted up with a smile of amusement, and she broke into a musical laugh.“What!” she exclaimed. “Do you not yet understand? I only wanted to say to you what I have just said—or, rather I wanted to get you away from that Irishman before your impetuous temper had time to precipitate a disaster.”“I see,” said I, “Well—”I was interrupted by a sound of hailing that seemed to proceed, not from our own forecastle but from some spot a little way ahead of us; and I at once concluded that its source must be the strange barque, the existence of which I had entirely forgotten in the interest of the discussion between myself and Miss Onslow. I listened for a reply from O’Gorman, but there was none; and presently the hailing was repeated—this time from a much nearer point—and immediately followed by an excited shouting and jabbering, in which I believed I could distinguish a word or two of French. I sprang to my feet, and was about to rush up on deck, when Miss Onslow checked the movement by laying her hand upon my arm, and saying:“Pleaseoblige me by staying here. If you were to go on deck, that wretch would only insult you again; so why lay yourself open to such treatment, since you can do absolutely nothing? Youmustschool yourself to allow those men to have their own way, since neither persuasion nor force are of any avail with them.”“True,” answered I. “But it is instinctive for a sailor—and especially anofficer—to rush on deck when he hears such an outcry as that,”—as the shouting and jabbering became momentarily nearer and more excited.At that instant O’Gorman’s voice shouted an order to “Stand by!” immediately followed by a command to the helmsman to “Hard a-starboard!” and presently there occurred a gentle shock—showing that the brig had collided with something apparently on the rounding of her starboard bow—accompanied by a most outrageous clamour, in which “S–a–c–r–és” and other French expletives plentifully abounded.“Now, take a turn anywhere you can, and as often as you can,” shouted O’Gorman, “and then follow me. And if they offer any resistance, knock ’em down, or heave ’em overboard.”“Why, good Heavens! they have run the barque aboard, and are taking her!” I exclaimed, astonished and shocked beyond expression, as it dawned upon me that the wretches were committing a further act of piracy. And I made as though to spring to my feet. In an instant Miss Onslow had seized my hand in hers, gripping me so firmly that I could not break away from her without exercising a certain measure of violence.“And if theyare?” said she, “can you do anything to prevent it?”“No,” answered I. “But I will tell you what Icando. If you will suffer me to go on deck I can see whether all hands have boarded the barque. And, if they have, and there appears to be the slightest possibility of our being able to effect our escape, I will cut the brig adrift, and make off with her!”“Do you really think such a feat possible?” demanded my companion, with sparkling eyes.“I scarcely know,” answered I. “If the breeze has freshened at all within the last few minutes, it might be done; not otherwise; because in the latter event they could lower the barque’s boats and overhaul us in a very few minutes.”“At all events it is quite worth while to ascertain whether there is any chance of success. Let us go on deck and see!” exclaimed Miss Onslow, her features at once all aglow with excitement as she sprang to her feet.“Agreed!” cried I, overjoyed to find the young lady so unexpectedly yielding approval to my rather desperate plan. “I will go on deck first, and ascertain the precise state of affairs; and if I find that there is a sufficiently fair prospect of success to justify us in the attempt I will call to you through the skylight as soon as I need your help.”My companion regarded me somewhat doubtfully for a moment, and then reseated herself, saying:“Very well. I think I can trust younow. But please be very careful; and do not attempt anything unless you feel certain of success.”Meanwhile, the uproar that had prevailed for a few minutes prior to and following upon the contact between the two craft had suddenly ceased; and as I emerged from the companion-way I saw that, even supposing there had ever been a prospect of my plan proving successful—which there had not, the wind having died away to the merest breathing—I was now too late. For the two vessels—their hulls prevented from grinding together by several cork fenders hung between them—were so securely lashed together that it would have cost me several minutes’ hard work to cut them adrift. Moreover, O’Gorman, followed by half a dozen of his gang, were just in the act of scrambling inboard again from the stranger. The Irishman saw me upon the instant of my emerging from the companion, and immediately shouted:“Here, Misther Conyers, ye’re just the man we want! Do you spake Frinch?”“Yes,” answered I, believing that I saw my opportunity. “Why?”“Becase,” he replied, “the chaps aboard the barque don’t seem to be able to undershtand a worrud we say to thim; and bedad we’re in the same fix with regar–rd to thim. So we want an interpreter; and maybe you’ll be able to act that same for us.”“Very well,” said I; “what do you want me to do?”“Whoy, we’ll take it kindly of ye if you’ll just be so obligin’ as to shtep aboard the barque, and say what we want ye to say,” answered the fellow. “But, mind,” he added warningly, “don’t ye attimpt to say annything else, or by the Piper it’ll be the worse for ye—and for the young woman down below. I can undershtand Frinch like a native—so I shall know everything that you say—but begorra the Oirish brogue of me makes it difficult for thim froggies to undershtand me when I shpake to thim.”“All right,” I answered, perfectly easy in my mind, “you can stand alongside me, and hear everything that passes.”So saying, without further ado I leapt upon the brig’s bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down upon her deck, closely followed by O’Gorman.

Having secured possession of the brig, and succeeded in coercing me to become their navigator to some island in the Pacific, the locality of which they had as yet kept secret, upon an errand the nature of which they had not seen fit to divulge to me, the crew at once went industriously to work, under O’Gorman, to put the vessel all ataunto once more, by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards, bending new sails, overhauling and making good the rigging, and, in short, repairing all damage of every description; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do, and, so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned, there was nothing to show that anything had ever been wrong with her.

Meanwhile, during the progress of this renovating process, the steward had made it his business to give the lazarette a thorough stock-taking overhaul, of the result of which I was kept ignorant. But I gathered that the examination was not altogether satisfactory; for when it was over, and the steward had made his report to O’Gorman, the latter came to me and anxiously demanded to know what our distance then was from the Horn. This was on the afternoon of the third day after the seizure of the brig, and upon carefully measuring off the distance from our position at noon on that day, I found that it amounted to three thousand seven hundred and some odd miles. The distance seemed to be a staggerer to the fellow, and when, in reply to a further question, I informed him that he might reckon upon the brig taking nearly or quite a month to cover it, he made no attempt to conceal his dismay. That something was radically wrong at once became apparent, for there were long conclaves in the forecastle, the object of which, presumably, was to determine how to meet the emergency. I shrewdly suspected that this emergency arose out of the unexpected discovery that the brig’s stock of provisions, or water, or both, was insufficient to carry us to our destination; and I fervently hoped that my conjecture might prove correct, as in that case we should be compelled to touch somewhere to renew our stock; and I felt that if in such a case I failed to secure the arrest of the whole party for piracy I should richly deserve to remain their tool, exposed to the countless vacillating and dangerous humours of a gang of ruffians who had deliberately thrown off every restraint of law and order.

But, in speculating thus, I was reckoning without my hosts; I was crediting O’Gorman and his satellites with scruples that they did not possess. I had not yet fully gauged the villainy of which they were capable.

Thus far, ever since we had borne up for the Horn, we had been favoured with a fair wind, and plenty of it; but on the second day after the occurrence of the above events the wind began to fail us, and by sunset that night it had dwindled away until the brig had barely steerage-way, while the surface of the ocean presented that streaky, oily appearance that is usually the precursor of a flat calm. Meanwhile, during the afternoon, a sail had hove in sight in the north-western board, steering south-east; and when the sun went down in a clear haze of ruddy gold, the sails of the stranger, reddened by the last beams of the luminary, glowed against the clear opal tints of the north-western sky at a distance of some eight miles, broad on our starboard bow.

The stranger was a barque-rigged vessel of some three hundred and fifty tons or so: quite an ordinary, everyday-looking craft, with nothing whatever of an alarming character in her aspect; yet she had not long been in sight when it became quite apparent that O’Gorman and his crew were greatly exercised at her appearance; and I was at first disposed to imagine that their emotion arose from the circumstance of their being fully aware that, in seizing the brig, as they had done, they had committed an act of piracy, and that they now feared detection and its attendant unpleasant consequences. But by sunset I had found occasion to alter my opinion, for it had by then become evident that O’Gorman was manoeuvring, not to avoid but to close with the stranger in such a manner as to avoid arousing any suspicion as to his design!

No sooner did this intention of O’Gorman’s become apparent than I began to ask myself what could be his motive for such a course; and the only satisfactory reply that I could find to such a question was that he wished to ascertain whether her skipper had any provisions to spare, and, if so, to endeavour to treat with him for their purchase—I had by this time seen enough of O’Gorman to recognise that he was quite acute enough to discern the advantage and safety which such a transaction would afford him over the alternative of being compelled to touch at some port, and I had little doubt that my surmise as to his intentions would prove correct. At all events, his determination to speak the barque was evident, and I began to cast about for some means whereby the encounter might be utilised to the advantage of Miss Onslow and myself.

There were two or three ways in which we might possibly be benefited by the incident, if only I could contrive to establish private communication with the skipper of the stranger. In the first place, if the barque happened to be British—of which, however, I had my doubts—I might make her skipper acquainted with all the circumstances relating to the brig’s seizure, and appeal to him to compel the Irishman and his gang—by force, if necessary—to surrender Miss Onslow and myself. Or, if that should prove impossible, I might perhaps be able to secure Miss Onslow’s transfer to the stranger, when—her safety having been assured—it would matter comparatively little what happened to myself. Or—in the event of both these schemes failing—I might possibly succeed in privately arranging with the skipper to acquaint the authorities with our predicament and request them to take the necessary steps to effect our rescue.

One or another of these plans I might perhaps succeed in putting into effect, provided that the Irishman should prove careless and neglectful enough to permit of my communicating with the skipper of the barque. But would he be so? I very much doubted it. Yet I could but try; and if, as I anticipated, I should find it impossible to obtain private speech with the skipper of the barque, I might still be able to surreptitiously convey to him a letter which would serve my purpose quite as well.

Meditating thus, I made my way below to the brig’s snug little cabin, with the intention of forthwith inditing my epistle, and there I found Miss Onslow, seated upon one of the lockers, ostensibly engaged in reading, but with her beautiful eyes fixed upon the gently-swaying lamp that hung in the skylight, with a dreamy, absent look in them that showed her thoughts to be far away.

“Do you happen to know whether the steward is in his pantry, Miss. Onslow?” I asked, with a glance in the direction of the apartment named, as I entered the cabin.

“No; he is not there; he went on deck nearly an hour ago,” she replied. “Do you want anything, Mr Conyers?”

“Nothing more at present than a few minutes’ privacy and freedom from espionage,” I answered. “Listen, Miss Onslow,” I continued, “I have been engaged for the last two hours in quietly observing the manoeuvres of O’Gorman, and I have come to the conclusion that he intends to close with and speak the barque that has been in sight all the afternoon. Now, such a proceeding may, or may not, be to our advantage. If I can succeed in effecting communication with her skipper, it may be possible for us to accomplish one of three things: First, we may, with the assistance of the barque’s crew, be enabled to effect our escape from these people altogether. Or, if that should prove impracticable, we may possibly be enabled to secureyourtransfer to the barque. Or,ifthat attempt also should fail, we surely ought to be able, with the help of the barque’s people, to communicate with the authorities ashore, and claim from them rescue from our present precarious and exceedingly unpleasant situation.”

“Y–e–es,” my companion assented meditatively. Then, after a slight pause, she asked:

“Have you ever thought of what the end of this adventure is likely to be, so far as we two are concerned, supposing that we should fail to effect our escape from O’Gorman and his companions?”

“Certainly, the matter is never absent from my thoughts,” I answered. “We are bound—upon what I cannot help thinking a fool’s errand—to some island in the Pacific, upon which O’Gorman and his party expect to find a certain treasure. This treasure they either will or willnotfind; but in either case I anticipate that, so far asweare concerned, the adventure will end in our being landed somewhere at a sufficient distance from a town to permit of O’Gorman getting clear away with the brig before we should have time to give the alarm and secure his capture.”

“That, of course, is assuming that you carry out these men’s wishes, without giving them any trouble,” commented Miss Onslow. “But,” she continued, “what, do you imagine, is likely to be the result—the effect upon us both—if you cause them trouble and anxiety by endeavouring to escape? They have made it perfectly evident to you that theycannotdispense with your services. Do you really think it worth our while to irritate and provoke them by attempting to escape? True, they are exceedingly unpleasant people to be brought into such close and constant contact with, but there seems to be no great harm in them, provided that they are allowed to have their own way.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed, “you evidently do not know of what a ship’s crew may become capable when once they have committed so serious a crime as piracy—for that is what they have done in taking this brig from me. It is not what these men are, now, but what they may become in the future, of which I am thinking, especially so far as you are concerned. I recognise possibilities in the future that may make this brig the scene of hourly peril to you of a nature that I shudder to think of, and it isyoursafety that I am concerned about; that assured, I could face the rest with equanimity.”

“Thank you. It is exceedingly good and kind of you to think so much for me, and so little for yourself,” answered my companion. She spoke with her face turned away from me, so that I was unable to read its expression, and her voice had an intonation that I would have given much to have been able to translate. Was it merely my imagination—I asked myself—or was there really a recurrent shade of her former hauteur of manner, mingled with just the faintest suggestion of irony and impatience? The fact is that I was at that moment as far from being able to comprehend this lovely but inscrutable woman as when I met her for the first time in the saloon of theCity of Cawnpore: her moods were as changeable as the weather: there were occasions when her manner toward me was almost as warm and genial and sympathetic as even a lover could require; while there were others when she appeared animated by a set purpose to impress upon me the conviction that our remarkable adventure together invested me with no claim whatever upon her beyond that of the merest ordinary gratitude. As for me, if I have not already allowed the fact to leak out, I may as well here make a clean breast of it and confess that I loved her with all the ardent passion of which a man’s heart is capable, and I was resolutely determined to win her love in return; but up to the moment of which I am now speaking I seemed to have made so little headway that I often doubted whether I had made any at all. I had, however, come at length to recognise that the rebuffs I occasionally met with followed some speech or action of mine of which the young lady did not wholly approve; and so I soon found it to be in the present instance. She remained silent for perhaps half a minute after speaking the words the recounting of which has extorted from me the above explanation, and then continued, with much greater cordiality:

“Believe me, Mr Conyers, I am sincerely grateful to you for your perfectly evident anxiety on my account; but I am obliged to confess that I do not regard our situation as nearly so desperate as you seem to do; I do not think that either of us will have anything to fear from O’Gorman and his companions if you will but reconcile yourself to the performance of the task that they have imposed upon you. What Idoreally fear is what may happen if you wilfully exasperate them by making any attempt to thwart their plans by depriving them of your assistance—without which, I would remind you again, they can do nothing. Help them to carry through their undertaking—never mind whether or not it be a fool’s errand—and I have every confidence that they will treat us with the utmost consideration, after their own rough fashion; but seriously provoke them, and, I ask you, what are likely to be the consequences to us both? Of course if you can so contrive it that we canbothbe rescued by the ship in sight, I shall be more delighted than I can say; but as to your attempting to getmetransferred to heralone—you will think it strange, unaccountable, perhaps, but I feel so very much more safe here, with you to protect me, than I should on board the strange ship,alone, that if you are to remain here I would very much rather remain with you.”

Words calculated to send the blood of an ardent lover throbbing through his veins like quicksilver, are they not? Yet they excited not one atom of jubilation in me, for they were uttered in a tone of such coldness and indifference that I felt as certain as I could be of anything that it was wholly of herself, and not at all of me, that the speaker was thinking.

“Very well,” I answered, steeling myself to the adoption of an equally cold manner of speech; “I think I understand your wishes in this matter, and will endeavour to carry them out; if the strangers yonder can be induced to take usbothout of the hands of these ruffians, well and good; if not, I am to take no other steps?”

She bowed acquiescence, and turned to her book once more, with a manner indicating that the discussion was at an end; and I, accepting the hint, retired at once to my cabin to prepare a letter addressed to the skipper of the stranger, to be conveyed to him if opportunity should permit.

But although I had yielded a seeming acquiescence to Miss Onslow’s misguided wish to share my captivity—should it be continued—aboard the brig, it must not be supposed that I had any intention of lending myself to so terribly dangerous and mistaken a proceeding. It was perfectly clear to me that the high-spirited girl had, in some unaccountable way, completely missed the point of my remarks, and utterly failed to comprehend the frightfully precarious and perilous character of her position aboard the brig; moreover, her mere presence there served O’Gorman as a lever and a menace powerful enough to constrain me irresistibly to the most abject submission to his will; so long as she remained where she was, in the power of these ruffians, I could do absolutely nothing, for fear of what they might inflict upon her by way of revenge; but with her removed from their power, and placed in safety, I might possibly be able to bring every one of the wretches into the grip of the law that they had so audaciously defied. And so, when I began to pen my letter to the unknown skipper, I was careful—after briefly describing our peculiar situation—to appeal to him, as powerfully as I could, to effect the rescue of the girl by any means at his command, regardless of what might become of me.

Having at length finished my letter, I folded it up into a suitably small and compact form, placed it by itself in one of my pockets, in readiness to transfer it at the first favourable opportunity to the individual for whom it was intended, and then, filling my pipe, made my way leisurely up on deck to take a look round and see in what direction matters were trending.

It was a magnificently fine and brilliant moon-lit night, with only a few small, scattered shreds of light fleecy cloud floating overhead, and a soft, warm air breathing out from the north-east so gently that it scarcely stirred the oil-smooth surface of the ocean, which indeed it only touched here and there in faint, evanescent cat’s-paws that barely sufficed to give the brig steerage-way with squared yards and every possible inch of canvas spread. As for the barque, she was now about a point on the starboard bow, not more than a mile distant, and was evidently not under command, as she had swung round head to wind, and lay there in the bright moonlight swaying with an almost imperceptible swing over the long, low hummocks of glassy swell, with her canvas—gleaming softly and spectrally under the showering moonbeams. All hands—O’Gorman included—except the man at the wheel, were on the forecastle-head, intently watching her, and talking eagerly together, so I had a good opportunity to take a leisurely survey of her, and draw my conclusions as to her nationality. I went to the companion, secured the night-glass, and took a good look at her; with the result that I concluded her to be of French or Italian nationality—rather an awkward and unexpected development for me, I having foolishly taken it for granted that she would prove to be British and written my letter in English accordingly. And yet, perhaps, if my surmise should prove to be correct, I might be afforded a better opportunity to make an effective appeal for assistance than if the craft were British, for I gravely doubted whether O’Gorman or any of his people spoke French or Italian, and if that were the case they would probably require me to act as interpreter for them, and thus afford me just such an opportunity as I desired. On the other hand, I could not but feel that an appeal for help, made to a French or an Italian crew, was much less likely to meet with a favourable response than if made to a crew of Britons.

These reflections passed through my mind as I stood peering through the tube at the becalmed barque; it did not need a very prolonged scrutiny to enable me to learn all that was possible of her at that distance, and presently I replaced the glass in its beckets, and proceeded to saunter fore and aft the deck, from the wake of the main rigging to the wheel grating, smoking meditatively the while.

By the time that I had smoked my pipe out we had neared the barque to within less than half, a mile; and I was momentarily expecting to hear O’Gorman give the order to round-to and lower away the boat—wondering, meanwhile, how on earth I could possibly contrive to get my letter conveyed to the skipper—when the Irishman came shambling aft and, placing himself at my side, inquired:

“Well, misther, have you finished your shmoke?”

“Yes,” I answered curtly. “Why do you ask the question, pray?”

“Because,” he replied, “I’ll have to ask ye to just step down belowand stay there for the rest of the night!”

“To step down below—and stay there?” I repeated indignantly. “What do you mean, man? Surely I am not to be sent to my bunk like a child, whether I wish to go or not?”

“Bedad, but ye are thin; so make no more bones about it!” he retorted, with quickly-rising anger.

“But, my good fellow, this is preposterous,”—I began, thoroughly exasperated at such treatment, and keenly anxious not to lose even the most slender chance of communicating with the strangers. But the fellow would permit no argument, his quick temper caught fire instantly at the merest suggestion of remonstrance on my part, and he cut me short by exclaiming furiously:

“Howly Sailor! Phwhat’s the use av’ talkin’ about it? Ye’ve got to go below, and that’s all there is about it. Will ye go p’aceably, or will I have to call some of the hands aft tomakeye go?”

Again did I feel that terrible, overpowering sensation of murderous anger grip at my heart, as it had already done once before in an altercation with this brutal ruffian, the blood again mounted to my head like fire, and, reckless of all consequences, I was in the very act of pulling myself together for a spring at his throat, when I felt a small hand—the touch of which thrilled me, even at that moment—laid upon my arm, and Miss Onslow’s voice—pitched in its most seductive tones—said:

“Will you please come with me at once—at once—Mr Conyers? I have something of the utmost importance to say to you!”

With an effort that caused me to turn sick and giddy, I mastered the impulse that urged me to strike my enemy dead, there and then, and, mute with the intensity of my feelings, permitted my companion to lead me away. We descended the companion ladder in silence; and upon reaching the cabin Miss Onslow—as upon a former occasion—led me to one of the sofa-lockers, upon which she seated herself, gently drawing me down beside her. Then, looking anxiously into my face, she said:

“Mr Conyers, I could almost find it in my heart to be angry with you. Why—oh,whywill you persist in laying yourself open to such insults from that great, coarse brute, by condescending to argue with him? What is the use of doing so? Surely you must realise, by this time, that you are quite powerless in the hands of these men, and that you cannot control or influence them in any way. Then, why attempt to do it? The only result is that you are insulted, and at once become positively mad with anger, under the influence of which you will some day—unless you are very careful—do something that you will be exceedingly sorry for. For instance, what would have happened, had I not fortunately chanced to have gone on deck the moment that I heard you and that Irish ruffian in conversation?”

“You are right—perfectly right,” I answered; “and you make me feel very heartily ashamed of myself for my lamentable want of self-control—of which I will take especial care that henceforward there shall be no repetition. Of course I can see clearly enough, now, how positively suicidal it would have been for me to have yielded to the impulse that animated me at the moment when you so fortunately came upon the scene—suicidal for myself, and ruinously disastrous foryou—which circumstance will, I assure you, amply suffice as an effectual check upon me for the future. We are but two against sixteen, and common sense tells me that, with such odds against us, violence is out of the question; we must depend upon craft and diplomacy to secure our ends.”

“Oh! I amsoglad to find you taking a reasonable view of our most unfortunate situation,” exclaimed my companion, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Of course,” she continued, “I can easily understand how terribly exasperating it must be to you—a naval officer, who has always hitherto been accustomed to the most implicit obedience on the part of your crew—to find yourself defied and insulted by these wretches, and I am not at all surprised that, under such circumstances, you find the provocation all but unendurable; but I am sure you are right in believing, as you say, that we must fight by diplomatic means rather than by a resort to brute force. I feel sure that the latter would be a terrible mistake on our part, and I will not attempt to deny that on the two occasions when you seemed about to resort to such means, I have been most horribly frightened.”

“Yes,” I exclaimed, with profound contrition, “I can quite understand that you would be so; and I very humbly beg your pardon for having so terrified you. I have been contemptibly weak at the very moment when I most needed to be strong; but have no further fear; you have effectually cured me of my weakness. And, now, you may as well tell me what was the important matter upon which you so urgently desired to speak to me.”

For a moment my companion gazed at me with a most bewitching expression of perplexity in her glorious eyes; then her face lighted up with a smile of amusement, and she broke into a musical laugh.

“What!” she exclaimed. “Do you not yet understand? I only wanted to say to you what I have just said—or, rather I wanted to get you away from that Irishman before your impetuous temper had time to precipitate a disaster.”

“I see,” said I, “Well—”

I was interrupted by a sound of hailing that seemed to proceed, not from our own forecastle but from some spot a little way ahead of us; and I at once concluded that its source must be the strange barque, the existence of which I had entirely forgotten in the interest of the discussion between myself and Miss Onslow. I listened for a reply from O’Gorman, but there was none; and presently the hailing was repeated—this time from a much nearer point—and immediately followed by an excited shouting and jabbering, in which I believed I could distinguish a word or two of French. I sprang to my feet, and was about to rush up on deck, when Miss Onslow checked the movement by laying her hand upon my arm, and saying:

“Pleaseoblige me by staying here. If you were to go on deck, that wretch would only insult you again; so why lay yourself open to such treatment, since you can do absolutely nothing? Youmustschool yourself to allow those men to have their own way, since neither persuasion nor force are of any avail with them.”

“True,” answered I. “But it is instinctive for a sailor—and especially anofficer—to rush on deck when he hears such an outcry as that,”—as the shouting and jabbering became momentarily nearer and more excited.

At that instant O’Gorman’s voice shouted an order to “Stand by!” immediately followed by a command to the helmsman to “Hard a-starboard!” and presently there occurred a gentle shock—showing that the brig had collided with something apparently on the rounding of her starboard bow—accompanied by a most outrageous clamour, in which “S–a–c–r–és” and other French expletives plentifully abounded.

“Now, take a turn anywhere you can, and as often as you can,” shouted O’Gorman, “and then follow me. And if they offer any resistance, knock ’em down, or heave ’em overboard.”

“Why, good Heavens! they have run the barque aboard, and are taking her!” I exclaimed, astonished and shocked beyond expression, as it dawned upon me that the wretches were committing a further act of piracy. And I made as though to spring to my feet. In an instant Miss Onslow had seized my hand in hers, gripping me so firmly that I could not break away from her without exercising a certain measure of violence.

“And if theyare?” said she, “can you do anything to prevent it?”

“No,” answered I. “But I will tell you what Icando. If you will suffer me to go on deck I can see whether all hands have boarded the barque. And, if they have, and there appears to be the slightest possibility of our being able to effect our escape, I will cut the brig adrift, and make off with her!”

“Do you really think such a feat possible?” demanded my companion, with sparkling eyes.

“I scarcely know,” answered I. “If the breeze has freshened at all within the last few minutes, it might be done; not otherwise; because in the latter event they could lower the barque’s boats and overhaul us in a very few minutes.”

“At all events it is quite worth while to ascertain whether there is any chance of success. Let us go on deck and see!” exclaimed Miss Onslow, her features at once all aglow with excitement as she sprang to her feet.

“Agreed!” cried I, overjoyed to find the young lady so unexpectedly yielding approval to my rather desperate plan. “I will go on deck first, and ascertain the precise state of affairs; and if I find that there is a sufficiently fair prospect of success to justify us in the attempt I will call to you through the skylight as soon as I need your help.”

My companion regarded me somewhat doubtfully for a moment, and then reseated herself, saying:

“Very well. I think I can trust younow. But please be very careful; and do not attempt anything unless you feel certain of success.”

Meanwhile, the uproar that had prevailed for a few minutes prior to and following upon the contact between the two craft had suddenly ceased; and as I emerged from the companion-way I saw that, even supposing there had ever been a prospect of my plan proving successful—which there had not, the wind having died away to the merest breathing—I was now too late. For the two vessels—their hulls prevented from grinding together by several cork fenders hung between them—were so securely lashed together that it would have cost me several minutes’ hard work to cut them adrift. Moreover, O’Gorman, followed by half a dozen of his gang, were just in the act of scrambling inboard again from the stranger. The Irishman saw me upon the instant of my emerging from the companion, and immediately shouted:

“Here, Misther Conyers, ye’re just the man we want! Do you spake Frinch?”

“Yes,” answered I, believing that I saw my opportunity. “Why?”

“Becase,” he replied, “the chaps aboard the barque don’t seem to be able to undershtand a worrud we say to thim; and bedad we’re in the same fix with regar–rd to thim. So we want an interpreter; and maybe you’ll be able to act that same for us.”

“Very well,” said I; “what do you want me to do?”

“Whoy, we’ll take it kindly of ye if you’ll just be so obligin’ as to shtep aboard the barque, and say what we want ye to say,” answered the fellow. “But, mind,” he added warningly, “don’t ye attimpt to say annything else, or by the Piper it’ll be the worse for ye—and for the young woman down below. I can undershtand Frinch like a native—so I shall know everything that you say—but begorra the Oirish brogue of me makes it difficult for thim froggies to undershtand me when I shpake to thim.”

“All right,” I answered, perfectly easy in my mind, “you can stand alongside me, and hear everything that passes.”

So saying, without further ado I leapt upon the brig’s bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down upon her deck, closely followed by O’Gorman.

Chapter Ten.We plunder the French barque.As my feet touched the barque’s deck, I flung a lightning glance about me to gather as much information as possible, not knowing but that at any moment such knowledge might be of priceless value to me. The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for’ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig. Her decks were in a very dirty and untidy condition, looking as though they had not been washed down, or even swept, for at least a week, and they were lumbered up with quite an unusual number of spars and booms. Yet she was evidently a passenger ship, for the cabin under her full poop was brilliantly lighted up, and through its open door I caught a glimpse of several men and women so attired as to at once proclaim their status on board; moreover, the quarter-deck was also occupied by a group of men and women, evidently passengers, with two or three sailorly-looking men among them, over whom a party of O’Gorman’s people were mounting guard, the remainder being stationed on guard over the fore-scuttle, down which I presumed the barque’s crew had been driven.My attention was almost instantly attracted toward the little party on the quarter-deck, and especially toward a grey-haired man in uniform, whom I imagined might be the skipper. I advanced toward the party, with a bow, and said, in French:“I wish to speak to the captain of this vessel: may I ask if he happens to be among you?”The old gentleman in uniform at once advanced a pace and, acknowledging my salute by raising his gold-laced cap, answered:“I am he. And I demand to know, monsieur, by what right you and your crew of ruffians have dared to run aboard me in this outrageous fashion, driving my crew below, stationing a guard athwart my decks, and frightening my passengers very nearly out of their senses. Are you pirates, or what?”“Monsieur,” answered I, “there is nothing to be gained by attempting to deceive you, and I will therefore at once say that I fear you will find that you have fallen into the hands of pirates. The big man beside me is their captain, while I, and a young lady aboard the brig, have the misfortune to be their prisoners. I shall probably not be afforded an opportunity to explain to you the unfortunate situation of the young lady and myself; but as soon as I became aware of the intention of these men to board you I prepared a letter which will explain everything—it is unfortunately written in English, but that, I am sure, will prove no obstacle to you. This letter I will presently endeavour to pass, unobserved, to one of you; and if you will kindly act in accordance with the request set forth therein, you will very greatly oblige two most unhappy people.”“Monsieur,” said the Frenchman, “I will gladly do anything in my power to help you; but as to effecting your rescue—” he glanced expressively at O’Gorman and his companions, and shrugged his shoulders in a way that very clearly indicated his helplessness.Here O’Gorman cut in. “Well, what has the ould chap got to say for himsilf?” he demanded.“Why,” answered I, “you heard what he said. He wants to know what we mean by boarding his ship in this outrageous fashion and driving his crew below.”“Ask him what is the name of his ship, where he is from, and where bound to,” ordered the Irishman.I put the questions; and the skipper answered:“This is theMarie Renaud, of and from Marseilles, for Bourbon, with a general cargo.”I translated, turning to O’Gorman—and slightly away from the group of Frenchmen—to do so; and while I was speaking a hand touched mine—which I held, clenched, behind my back, with the letter, folded small, within it—while a voice murmured in my ear:“Your letter, monsieur?”I opened my fingers, and felt the missive gently abstracted.“Thank God for that opportunity!” thought I fervently, as O’Gorman said:“Ask him if he has plenty of provisions and water aboard.”I at once saw the villain’s game: he was going to replenish the brig’s stores by plundering the barque, thus rendering it unnecessary to touch at any port. So, while translating the question to the French skipper, I took it upon myself to very tersely mention my suspicions, and to recommend the adoption of any precautionary measures that might suggest themselves.“The bulk of my stores is stowed in the after hold,” answered the French skipper, “but there is about enough in the lazarette to carry us to Cape Town. If they can be persuaded to be satisfied with what is there only, we shall come to no great harm.”“You hear?” said I, turning to O’Gorman again, quite certain, by this time, of his inability to understand a single word of French; “they are very short of provisions, having only sufficient in their lazarette to carry them to Cape Town.”“Is that all?” demanded the Irishman. “Thin, be jabers,I’msorry for thim, for there’s a good manny miles bechuxt here and Cape Town, and I’m afraid they’ll be mortial hungry before they get there. For I’m goin’ to help mesilf to everything ateable that the barque carries, and so ye may tell the skipper—bad cess to him for a mismanagin’ shpalpeen! Whoy didn’t he lay in stores enough to carry him to the ind of his v’yage? And ye may tell him, too, to start all hands to get those stores on deck in a hurry; our own lads will have enough to do in lookin’ afther everybody, and seein’ that none of the Frenchies thries to play anny tricks wid us.”I translated the gist of these remarks to the French captain, and at the same time gave him a hint to exhibit a proper amount of righteous indignation over the robbery; which he did to perfection, wringing his hands, rumpling his hair, and pacing the deck with the air of a madman while he poured out anathemas enough upon O’Gorman and his gang to sink the entire party to the nethermost depths of perdition. Meanwhile, the French crew, under the supervision of the mates—with Price watching the operation to see that a clean sweep was made of the lazarette—went to work to pass the stores on deck; and in less than an hour everything that the lazarette had contained was safely transferred to the brig, and stowed away.While this operation was in progress, O’Gorman made a tour of the various cabins, compelling the unfortunate passengers to turn out their trunks before him, and appropriating the whole of their cash, jewellery, weapons, and ammunition, together with as much of their clothing as happened to take his fancy. As he executed his self-imposed task with considerable deliberation, those passengers whose turn was still to come had plenty of time to meditate upon their coming despoilment, and one of them—the individual who had so kindly relieved me of my letter—took it into his head to do me a good turn. Withdrawing quietly to his cabin, he presently reappeared with a mahogany case, to which he unostentatiously directed my attention, immediately afterwards laying it carelessly down in a dark corner of the cabin.Then he came and stood close beside me, and murmured in my ear:“A brace of duelling-pistols, with a full supply of ammunition, monsieur. Since apparently theymustgo, I would rather that they should fall into monsieur’s hands, if possible. He may perhaps find them useful some time in the future.”“A thousand thanks, monsieur,” returned I, in a whisper. “Should we ever meet again I will endeavour to repay your kindness with interest.”Then, watching my opportunity, I possessed myself of the case of pistols, made my way on deck with them, and—thanks to the bustle of trans-shipping the stores—managed to slip on board the brig with it and convey it, undetected, to my own cabin. Having done which, I spoke a reassuring word or two to Miss Onslow—who had retired to her own cabin—lighted a pipe, and sauntered up on deck again with the most careless demeanour imaginable.It was long past midnight by the time that O’Gorman had finished rifling the barque, by which time he had secured all the provisions out of the unfortunate craft’s lazarette, had taken four brass nine-pounder guns, two dozen stand of muskets, the same number of cutlasses and boarding pikes, together with a considerable quantity of ammunition, had emptied one of the barque’s water-tanks, and had robbed them, in addition, of their two best boats—fine twenty-seven feet gigs—with their whole equipment. Then, the weather still being stark calm, he compelled the Frenchmen to hoist out their remaining two boats and to tow the brig clear of and about a mile distant from the barque. Before that moment arrived, however, the French skipper contrived to get a hurried word with me.“Monsieur,” he said, “the contents of your letter have been communicated to me; and permit me to say that you and Mademoiselle Onslow have the heartiest sympathy and commiseration of myself and my passengers in your most unpleasant situation. But, monsieur, I fear I cannot possibly help you in the way that would doubtless be most acceptable to you—namely, by receiving you on board my ship. The scoundrels who hold you in their power would never permit it; and even were it possible for you and mademoiselle to slip aboard, unperceived, and secrete yourselves, your absence would be quickly discovered, it would be guessed what had become of you, and the pirates would assuredly give chase and recapture you—for the barque, fine ship though she be, certainlyisa trifle slow—and who knows what vengeance the wretches might wreck upon us for having presumed to abet you in your attempt to escape them? You will perceive, I am sure, that my duty to my passengers forbids my exposing them to such a risk. But I shall now call at Cape Town, to replace what those villains have taken from me; and you may rest assured that I will not only report the act of piracy that has been perpetrated upon me, but I will also make known the unfortunate situation of yourself and mademoiselle, so that your countrymen may be enabled to take such steps as they may see fit to effect your rescue.”This was as much as I could reasonably hope; and I thanked the skipper heartily for undertaking even so much as that.In the early hours of the morning a gentle little air from the northward—that gradually strengthened to a nice working breeze—sprang up; and when I went on deck at seven bells theMarie Renaudwas out of sight, and we were alone once more on the tumbling waste of waters.From that time forward nothing of importance occurred until we arrived in the longitude of the Horn, our passage of this notorious headland being accomplished in gloriously fine weather—for a wonder—with half a gale of wind from the eastward, blowing over our taffrail, to which we showed every rag that we could set upon the hooker. The actual passage occurred in the early morning—about six o’clock, according to our dead reckoning—and upon working out the sights that I had secured after breakfast for the determination of the longitude, I found that we were thirty miles to the westward of it, and far enough south to permit of our shifting our helm for the mysterious island to which we were supposed to be bound. Accordingly, having verified my figures, and pricked off the brig’s position on the chart, I made my way up on deck, and informed O’Gorman of the state of affairs.“So we’re actually now in the moighty Pacific, eh?” he exclaimed in high elation. “Bedad that’s good news, annyhow, and we’ll cilibrate the occasion by takin’ an exthry tot o’ grog all round, and dhrinkin’ shuccess to the v’yage. But, sthop a minute; ye want to know where ye’re to shape a coorse for, now? By the powers, misther, I’ll tell ye that same in a brace of shakes. Let me go and get the paper out o’ me chist, and I’ll soon make ye as wise as mesilf.”The fellow hurried away for’ard, and dived below into the forecastle, from which he soon emerged again, bearing in his hand an oblong envelope. From this he carefully withdrew a paper, folded lengthwise, and, opening it, read:“‘Latichood: Two, forty-eight, forty; south. Longitood: One hundred and forty-four, ten, ten; west. Approach island from nor’-west, and stand towards it with summit of hill bearin’ south-east half-south, which leads through the passage in the barrier reef. Then haul up to south a quarter west for the mouth of the bight’—and that’s enough: there’s no call to read the rest to ye,” he concluded abruptly.“As you please,” answered I; “I have no desire whatever to know anything more of the matter than what is absolutely necessary to enable me to navigate the brig to the spot, and afterwards to make a civilised port in the shortest possible time. I will, however, have a look at the chart, and ascertain the particular island to which those figures of yours refer.”“You might as well bring the chart up on deck, and let me see it: I’d loike to see just where we’re bound to, and how long it’ll take us to git there,” remarked O’Gorman.I accordingly went below, secured the chart, together with a pencil, a pair of dividers, and a parallel ruler, and took the whole on deck. Then, spreading the chart open, I pricked off the latitude and longitude given by O’Gorman, and, to my astonishment, found that the spot was located in open water.“I am very much afraid that your information is faulty, O’Gorman,” said I, pointing to the spot. “Do you see that? There is no island shown in your latitude and longitude. The nearest land to it is the Marquesas group, and Hiau—the nearest of them—is three hundred and sixty miles distant from your spot.”O’Gorman stared blankly at the chart for a full minute or more, glared suspiciously at me for nearly as long; looked at his paper again, to assure himself that he had made no mistake; and finally rapped out a string of oaths in his consternation. Then he nipped his profanity short off as a comforting reflection occurred to him.“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, “but this oiland as Oi’m talkin’ about is unbeknownst, so av coorse it won’t be drawed on the chart. That’s all right, misther; you navigate the brig to that place, and you’ll find an oiland there, safe enough.”“But, supposing that we donot,” I suggested; “supposing that your information happens to be incorrect; what then?”“Ay, but itwon’tbe,” he snarled back; “it’ll be correct, and we’ll find the oiland where Oi told ye. And if we don’t, why bedad it’ll be the worse for you and the gal, for we’ll cruise for it until we find it, if we has to cruise until the Judgment Day, like the Flyin’ Dutchman!”“All right,” I said. “If the island is where you say it is, I will find it for you, never fear. If it isnot—well, then it willnotbe found; and that is all there is about it.”“Oi tell ye itwillbe found; itmustbe found!” shouted O’Gorman, goaded to fury at the suggestion that perhaps, after all, a dire disappointment lay in store for him. “If the oiland isn’t there, it’s somewheres thereabouts, widin a few miles more or less; and we’ve got to find it afore the hooker turns her nose towards home. Now I hopes that’s plain enough for ye.”And, smiting the chart a mighty blow with his clenched fist, he turned on his heel and walked forward.It need scarcely be said that after such a dogmatic statement as this I found my anxiety greatly increased; for I by this time knew the Irishman well enough to be fully aware that no mule could be more obstinate than he, and that, having once made up his mind that his island existed, he would never abandon his search until he had found it—or something that might pass for it. And I was determined that should our search prove unsuccessful, I would at once bear up for the Marquesas, and let him take his choice from among the whole group. Indeed, for a moment I felt tempted to shape as straight a course as I could for the centre of the group, without troubling to hunt for O’Gorman’s particular island at all, as I gravely doubted whether it really had an existence outside the man’s own imagination. But, on the other hand, his information was drawn from a document that, while stained and discoloured with age, had every appearance—from my casual inspection of it—of being genuine; and, if so, the island might possibly exist, although uncharted. Moreover, O’Gorman had not seized the brig and become a pirate merely to satisfy an idle curiosity as to the accuracy of the document he had produced; he was going there for a certain definite purpose; to search for something, probably; and, if so, nothing short of our arrival at that particular island would satisfy him. So, having laid off the course upon the chart, I gave it to the helmsman, and called the hands aft to trim sail.Of our passage into the solitudes of the Pacific I have nothing to relate, save that Miss Onslow’s demeanour toward me became, if possible, more perplexing and tantalising than ever. To convey a clear and accurate idea of her varying moods it would be necessary to relate in tolerably minute detail the particulars of our daily intercourse throughout the voyage—a course of procedure which would not only expand my story far beyond its proper limits, but would also entirely alter its character—I must therefore content myself with merely stating that I believe I may, without exaggeration, assert that I never found her upon any two occasions to behave in a precisely similar manner. She appeared to regulate her treatment of me by the behaviour of the men. She had long ago abandoned that almost insolent hauteur of manner that distinguished her at the outset of our acquaintance; but if the weather was fine, the wind fair, the men upon their best behaviour—as sometimes happened—inshort,ifthings were going well with me in other respects, she invariably kept me at arm’s-length by a certain indefinable, but none the less unmistakable, coolness, indifference, and distance of manner just sufficiently pronounced to suggest a desire to be left to herself. But in proportion as difficulties, anxieties, and vexations arose, so did her manner warm to me until there were times when it became almost caressingly tender; so that, as my passion for her grew, I sometimes felt almost tempted to feign an anxiety or a distress that did not exist, for the mere delight of finding her manner warming to me. But I take credit to myself that I always resisted the temptation, fighting against it as a thing to yield to which would be mean and unmanly on my part.In this strange and contradictory condition of alternate peace, rendered insipid by Miss Onslow’s coolness, and anxiety converted into happiness unspeakable by the warmth and tenderness of her sympathy, I carried the brig toward the spot indicated in O’Gorman’s document; and at noon on a certain day my observations showed that we had arrived within sixty miles of it. The weather was then brilliantly fine, with a gentle breeze out from about west-north-west, that wafted the brig along over the low, long mounds of the Pacific swell at a rate of about five knots; consequently, if the island happened to be in the position assigned to it, we ought to reach it about midnight. O’Gorman’s desire to be made acquainted with our exact position daily had been growing ever since we had shifted our helm after rounding the Horn, beginning as a condition of languid curiosity, which had strengthened into a state of feverish restlessness and anxiety that, on the day in question, as soon as I had conveyed to him the customary information, found vent in an order that a man should go aloft and maintain a lookout from the topgallant yard until the island should be sighted, the remainder of the crew being set to work during the afternoon to rouse out and bend the cables, and to attend to the various other matters incidental to the approach of a vessel to a port. He also had the spare spars overhauled and suitable ones selected for the purpose of erecting tents in conjunction with the brig’s old sails, from all of which I inferred that our stay at the island—should we happen to find it—would be a somewhat protracted one.As to the probability of our finding the place, I was exceedingly doubtful; for although I was well aware that hitherto unknown islands were still occasionally being discovered in the Pacific, I was equally well aware that these new islands were almost invariably low, and of insignificant dimensions, being, in fact, merely coral reefs that have been gradually lifted above the surface of the ocean; whereas O’Gorman’s document contained mention of ahill, and the presence of a hill argued a probable existence of ages, and a consequently corresponding likelihood of comparatively early discovery.But at two bells in the second dog-watch, that night, all doubt was put an end to by a sudden, startling cry from the lookout on the fore-topgallant yard of:“Land ho; right ahead!”I was on deck at the time, and far from expecting to hear such a cry; indeed so incredulous was I still that I quite concluded the man had allowed his imagination to run away with him, and was mistaking the shoulder of some low-lying cloud for distant land. So I hailed him with:“Topgallant yard, there! are you quite sure that what you see is land, and not a hummock of cloud?”“Yes, sir,” he shouted back; “I’mquitesure of it. I’ve been watchin’ it growin’ for the last quarter of a hour or more, and it haven’t changed its shape the least bit all that time; only growed the leastest bit bigger and clearer.”Meanwhile, O’Gorman had sprung into the rigging and was by this time clawing his way over the rim of the top. Another minute, and he was on the topgallant yard, alongside the other man, peering ahead into the fast gathering dusk, under the sharp of his hand. He stared at it for a good five minutes; then, shouting down “It’s all right, mates; it’s land, and no mistake!” he swung himself on to the backstay, and came down on deck by way of it. He no sooner reached the deck than he plunged into the forecastle, from which he presently emerged again, bearing in his hand a packet that I presently recognised as his precious document. He came straight aft to me with it, and said:“Now, misther, I want ye to get a bit of paper and write down the directions that Oi’ll read out to ye. Oi’m all right in deep wather, and wid plenty of say-room to come and go upon; but whin it comes to navigatin’ narrow channels, and kapin’ clear of the rocks, and takin’ a vessel to her anchorage, bedad I’m nowhere. So I’ll be obliged to ask ye to write down the instructions that Oi’ve got here, and then ye’ll take command of the brig until she’s safe at anchor.”“Very well,” I said. “Are the instructions very long?”“Two or three dozen words ’ll cover the lot,” answered the Irishman.“All right,” said I; “fire away.” And drawing a pencil and paper from my pocket, I prepared to copy down whatever he might read to me.“‘Approach island from nor’-west,’” began O’Gorman, “‘and stand towards it wid summit of hill bearin’ south-east, half-south; which leads through the passage in the barrier reef. Then haul up to south a quarter west, for the mouth of the bight at the bottom of the bay. Stand boldly in until ye come abreast of the big rock at the mouth of the bight, when clew up and furl everything. Follow the bight until ye reach the lagoon, when ye may anchor annywhere not closer than a dozen fadoms of the oiland. The gems’—oh, bedad, but that’s another matther intoirely,” he hastily concluded.“The directions seem explicit enough,” said I; “and as no mention is made of any dangers to be avoided I suppose there are none. All the same, we shall need daylight for the job of taking the brig to the berth mentioned, so I shall stand on until four bells in the first watch, and then heave-to for the remainder of the night. At daylight we will fill away again and work round to the nor’-west side of the island, when, if the water happens to be clear, we shall perhaps be able to see the bottom from aloft, and thus safely pilot the vessel to her anchorage. I will con her myself from the fore-topmast crosstrees.”At four bells—ten o’clock—that night, the island showed through the clear darkness upon the horizon as an irregularly-shaped pyramid, with a peak nearly in the centre of it, rising to a height which I estimated at about six or seven hundred feet. The island itself was at that time some ten miles distant, and, measured from end to end, as we then looked at it, I took it to be about four miles across. We hove the brig to, and tried a cast first with the hand lead, and then with the deep-sea lead, but got no bottom, at which I was by no means surprised, as I had already heard that many of the islands in the Pacific—especially those of coral formation—rise sheer from the very bottom of the sea.At daybreak the next morning I was called by the steward, and, dressing, went on deck, to find that the weather was as it had been all through the preceding day, namely, a light breeze from the westward, with a cloudless sky of crystalline clearness overhead, and a long, low sluggish swell undulating athwart the gently-ruffled surface of the ocean. The island now bore about four points on our weather quarter, some sixteen miles distant; so we filled the main-topsail, got way upon the ship, and hauled up to “full-and-by,” when it was found that we should just handsomely fetch clear of the most leeward point of the land.Viewed by the early daylight, the island presented a most attractive appearance, rising against the background of sky as a picture painted in an infinite variety of delicate purple tones of shadow, through which, with the aid of the glass, could be made out the several declivities, gorges, precipices, and ravines that went to make up the contour of the country. It was thickly wooded everywhere, seemingly from the water’s edge to within some eighty feet or so of the summit, the latter rising naked into the clear air. But attractive as it looked under the soft, subdued light of the early dawn, in the delicate monochrome of distance, and the absence of direct sunlight, it looked even more beautiful when, after sunrise, as we approached it more closely, the countless subtle variations of tint in the foliage, from this in brightest sunlight, to that in deepest, richest purple shadow, became manifest; and so powerful an impression did it make upon the men that I overheard them freely discussing the desirability of making a lengthened sojourn there.“Yes,” said I, when O’Gorman, carried away by his enthusiasm at the beauty of the place, hinted at such a possibility, “that is all very well, and sounds very attractive just now; but has it yet occurred to you that yonder island may be peopled by a race of savages who, if we give them the opportunity, will gladly make a barbecue of all hands?”“Phew! begorra, but Oi nivver thought of that!” he ejaculated in sudden dismay. “Oi’m obliged to ye for the hint, misther. We’ll load the guns and muskets, and make ready generally for the blagguards, if they have the impidence to be there.”And forthwith he shambled away for’ard, unceremoniously cutting into the holiday plans that the men were busily concocting, and instructing them to load the guns and arm themselves in readiness for any emergency that might arise.As we stood in toward the land I kept a bright lookout for smoke, for huts peeping from among the trees, for canoes hauled up on the beach, or any other indications of the presence of human life on the island, but could see nothing. At this, however, I was not very greatly surprised, for although we were on the lee side of the island, the surf was breaking so heavily all along the shore as to render it impracticable for canoes. If the island happened to be inhabited, the inhabitants would probably be found located on its weather side, which, according to O’Gorman’s document, was protected from the surf by a barrier reef, with a passage through it.As we stood on it became apparent that the island was nearer five than four miles long—as I had estimated it to be on the previous night—that its general trend was from north-east to south-west, and that, if surveyed and laid down upon the chart, it would present a somewhat flat and irregular crescent-like plan. The barrier reef sprang from the north-east extremity of the island, sweeping seaward on the arc of a circle on its north-western side, and uniting again with the island at its south-western extremity, forming a lagoon of the same length as the island, and about three-quarters of a mile wide at its widest point. The barrier reef, in fact, constituted a magnificent natural breakwater, upon which the surf eternally broke in a loud, sullen roar of everlasting thunder, while inside it the water was smooth as a mill pond, shoaling very gradually from the reef to the shore of the island, which consisted of a narrow beach of dazzling white sand, bordered by a fringe of thousands of cocoa-nut palms, the long, plume-like branches of which swayed gently in the soft, warm morning breeze. It was on this side of the island, I concluded, that, if anywhere, traces of inhabitants would be found, and I scanned the shore carefully and anxiously through the ship’s glass in search of such; but nothing of the kind was to be seen; and I at length closed the telescope with a clash, relieved to believe that, whatever anxieties there might be awaiting me in the immediate future, trouble with hostile natives was not to be one of them.

As my feet touched the barque’s deck, I flung a lightning glance about me to gather as much information as possible, not knowing but that at any moment such knowledge might be of priceless value to me. The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for’ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig. Her decks were in a very dirty and untidy condition, looking as though they had not been washed down, or even swept, for at least a week, and they were lumbered up with quite an unusual number of spars and booms. Yet she was evidently a passenger ship, for the cabin under her full poop was brilliantly lighted up, and through its open door I caught a glimpse of several men and women so attired as to at once proclaim their status on board; moreover, the quarter-deck was also occupied by a group of men and women, evidently passengers, with two or three sailorly-looking men among them, over whom a party of O’Gorman’s people were mounting guard, the remainder being stationed on guard over the fore-scuttle, down which I presumed the barque’s crew had been driven.

My attention was almost instantly attracted toward the little party on the quarter-deck, and especially toward a grey-haired man in uniform, whom I imagined might be the skipper. I advanced toward the party, with a bow, and said, in French:

“I wish to speak to the captain of this vessel: may I ask if he happens to be among you?”

The old gentleman in uniform at once advanced a pace and, acknowledging my salute by raising his gold-laced cap, answered:

“I am he. And I demand to know, monsieur, by what right you and your crew of ruffians have dared to run aboard me in this outrageous fashion, driving my crew below, stationing a guard athwart my decks, and frightening my passengers very nearly out of their senses. Are you pirates, or what?”

“Monsieur,” answered I, “there is nothing to be gained by attempting to deceive you, and I will therefore at once say that I fear you will find that you have fallen into the hands of pirates. The big man beside me is their captain, while I, and a young lady aboard the brig, have the misfortune to be their prisoners. I shall probably not be afforded an opportunity to explain to you the unfortunate situation of the young lady and myself; but as soon as I became aware of the intention of these men to board you I prepared a letter which will explain everything—it is unfortunately written in English, but that, I am sure, will prove no obstacle to you. This letter I will presently endeavour to pass, unobserved, to one of you; and if you will kindly act in accordance with the request set forth therein, you will very greatly oblige two most unhappy people.”

“Monsieur,” said the Frenchman, “I will gladly do anything in my power to help you; but as to effecting your rescue—” he glanced expressively at O’Gorman and his companions, and shrugged his shoulders in a way that very clearly indicated his helplessness.

Here O’Gorman cut in. “Well, what has the ould chap got to say for himsilf?” he demanded.

“Why,” answered I, “you heard what he said. He wants to know what we mean by boarding his ship in this outrageous fashion and driving his crew below.”

“Ask him what is the name of his ship, where he is from, and where bound to,” ordered the Irishman.

I put the questions; and the skipper answered:

“This is theMarie Renaud, of and from Marseilles, for Bourbon, with a general cargo.”

I translated, turning to O’Gorman—and slightly away from the group of Frenchmen—to do so; and while I was speaking a hand touched mine—which I held, clenched, behind my back, with the letter, folded small, within it—while a voice murmured in my ear:

“Your letter, monsieur?”

I opened my fingers, and felt the missive gently abstracted.

“Thank God for that opportunity!” thought I fervently, as O’Gorman said:

“Ask him if he has plenty of provisions and water aboard.”

I at once saw the villain’s game: he was going to replenish the brig’s stores by plundering the barque, thus rendering it unnecessary to touch at any port. So, while translating the question to the French skipper, I took it upon myself to very tersely mention my suspicions, and to recommend the adoption of any precautionary measures that might suggest themselves.

“The bulk of my stores is stowed in the after hold,” answered the French skipper, “but there is about enough in the lazarette to carry us to Cape Town. If they can be persuaded to be satisfied with what is there only, we shall come to no great harm.”

“You hear?” said I, turning to O’Gorman again, quite certain, by this time, of his inability to understand a single word of French; “they are very short of provisions, having only sufficient in their lazarette to carry them to Cape Town.”

“Is that all?” demanded the Irishman. “Thin, be jabers,I’msorry for thim, for there’s a good manny miles bechuxt here and Cape Town, and I’m afraid they’ll be mortial hungry before they get there. For I’m goin’ to help mesilf to everything ateable that the barque carries, and so ye may tell the skipper—bad cess to him for a mismanagin’ shpalpeen! Whoy didn’t he lay in stores enough to carry him to the ind of his v’yage? And ye may tell him, too, to start all hands to get those stores on deck in a hurry; our own lads will have enough to do in lookin’ afther everybody, and seein’ that none of the Frenchies thries to play anny tricks wid us.”

I translated the gist of these remarks to the French captain, and at the same time gave him a hint to exhibit a proper amount of righteous indignation over the robbery; which he did to perfection, wringing his hands, rumpling his hair, and pacing the deck with the air of a madman while he poured out anathemas enough upon O’Gorman and his gang to sink the entire party to the nethermost depths of perdition. Meanwhile, the French crew, under the supervision of the mates—with Price watching the operation to see that a clean sweep was made of the lazarette—went to work to pass the stores on deck; and in less than an hour everything that the lazarette had contained was safely transferred to the brig, and stowed away.

While this operation was in progress, O’Gorman made a tour of the various cabins, compelling the unfortunate passengers to turn out their trunks before him, and appropriating the whole of their cash, jewellery, weapons, and ammunition, together with as much of their clothing as happened to take his fancy. As he executed his self-imposed task with considerable deliberation, those passengers whose turn was still to come had plenty of time to meditate upon their coming despoilment, and one of them—the individual who had so kindly relieved me of my letter—took it into his head to do me a good turn. Withdrawing quietly to his cabin, he presently reappeared with a mahogany case, to which he unostentatiously directed my attention, immediately afterwards laying it carelessly down in a dark corner of the cabin.

Then he came and stood close beside me, and murmured in my ear:

“A brace of duelling-pistols, with a full supply of ammunition, monsieur. Since apparently theymustgo, I would rather that they should fall into monsieur’s hands, if possible. He may perhaps find them useful some time in the future.”

“A thousand thanks, monsieur,” returned I, in a whisper. “Should we ever meet again I will endeavour to repay your kindness with interest.”

Then, watching my opportunity, I possessed myself of the case of pistols, made my way on deck with them, and—thanks to the bustle of trans-shipping the stores—managed to slip on board the brig with it and convey it, undetected, to my own cabin. Having done which, I spoke a reassuring word or two to Miss Onslow—who had retired to her own cabin—lighted a pipe, and sauntered up on deck again with the most careless demeanour imaginable.

It was long past midnight by the time that O’Gorman had finished rifling the barque, by which time he had secured all the provisions out of the unfortunate craft’s lazarette, had taken four brass nine-pounder guns, two dozen stand of muskets, the same number of cutlasses and boarding pikes, together with a considerable quantity of ammunition, had emptied one of the barque’s water-tanks, and had robbed them, in addition, of their two best boats—fine twenty-seven feet gigs—with their whole equipment. Then, the weather still being stark calm, he compelled the Frenchmen to hoist out their remaining two boats and to tow the brig clear of and about a mile distant from the barque. Before that moment arrived, however, the French skipper contrived to get a hurried word with me.

“Monsieur,” he said, “the contents of your letter have been communicated to me; and permit me to say that you and Mademoiselle Onslow have the heartiest sympathy and commiseration of myself and my passengers in your most unpleasant situation. But, monsieur, I fear I cannot possibly help you in the way that would doubtless be most acceptable to you—namely, by receiving you on board my ship. The scoundrels who hold you in their power would never permit it; and even were it possible for you and mademoiselle to slip aboard, unperceived, and secrete yourselves, your absence would be quickly discovered, it would be guessed what had become of you, and the pirates would assuredly give chase and recapture you—for the barque, fine ship though she be, certainlyisa trifle slow—and who knows what vengeance the wretches might wreck upon us for having presumed to abet you in your attempt to escape them? You will perceive, I am sure, that my duty to my passengers forbids my exposing them to such a risk. But I shall now call at Cape Town, to replace what those villains have taken from me; and you may rest assured that I will not only report the act of piracy that has been perpetrated upon me, but I will also make known the unfortunate situation of yourself and mademoiselle, so that your countrymen may be enabled to take such steps as they may see fit to effect your rescue.”

This was as much as I could reasonably hope; and I thanked the skipper heartily for undertaking even so much as that.

In the early hours of the morning a gentle little air from the northward—that gradually strengthened to a nice working breeze—sprang up; and when I went on deck at seven bells theMarie Renaudwas out of sight, and we were alone once more on the tumbling waste of waters.

From that time forward nothing of importance occurred until we arrived in the longitude of the Horn, our passage of this notorious headland being accomplished in gloriously fine weather—for a wonder—with half a gale of wind from the eastward, blowing over our taffrail, to which we showed every rag that we could set upon the hooker. The actual passage occurred in the early morning—about six o’clock, according to our dead reckoning—and upon working out the sights that I had secured after breakfast for the determination of the longitude, I found that we were thirty miles to the westward of it, and far enough south to permit of our shifting our helm for the mysterious island to which we were supposed to be bound. Accordingly, having verified my figures, and pricked off the brig’s position on the chart, I made my way up on deck, and informed O’Gorman of the state of affairs.

“So we’re actually now in the moighty Pacific, eh?” he exclaimed in high elation. “Bedad that’s good news, annyhow, and we’ll cilibrate the occasion by takin’ an exthry tot o’ grog all round, and dhrinkin’ shuccess to the v’yage. But, sthop a minute; ye want to know where ye’re to shape a coorse for, now? By the powers, misther, I’ll tell ye that same in a brace of shakes. Let me go and get the paper out o’ me chist, and I’ll soon make ye as wise as mesilf.”

The fellow hurried away for’ard, and dived below into the forecastle, from which he soon emerged again, bearing in his hand an oblong envelope. From this he carefully withdrew a paper, folded lengthwise, and, opening it, read:

“‘Latichood: Two, forty-eight, forty; south. Longitood: One hundred and forty-four, ten, ten; west. Approach island from nor’-west, and stand towards it with summit of hill bearin’ south-east half-south, which leads through the passage in the barrier reef. Then haul up to south a quarter west for the mouth of the bight’—and that’s enough: there’s no call to read the rest to ye,” he concluded abruptly.

“As you please,” answered I; “I have no desire whatever to know anything more of the matter than what is absolutely necessary to enable me to navigate the brig to the spot, and afterwards to make a civilised port in the shortest possible time. I will, however, have a look at the chart, and ascertain the particular island to which those figures of yours refer.”

“You might as well bring the chart up on deck, and let me see it: I’d loike to see just where we’re bound to, and how long it’ll take us to git there,” remarked O’Gorman.

I accordingly went below, secured the chart, together with a pencil, a pair of dividers, and a parallel ruler, and took the whole on deck. Then, spreading the chart open, I pricked off the latitude and longitude given by O’Gorman, and, to my astonishment, found that the spot was located in open water.

“I am very much afraid that your information is faulty, O’Gorman,” said I, pointing to the spot. “Do you see that? There is no island shown in your latitude and longitude. The nearest land to it is the Marquesas group, and Hiau—the nearest of them—is three hundred and sixty miles distant from your spot.”

O’Gorman stared blankly at the chart for a full minute or more, glared suspiciously at me for nearly as long; looked at his paper again, to assure himself that he had made no mistake; and finally rapped out a string of oaths in his consternation. Then he nipped his profanity short off as a comforting reflection occurred to him.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, “but this oiland as Oi’m talkin’ about is unbeknownst, so av coorse it won’t be drawed on the chart. That’s all right, misther; you navigate the brig to that place, and you’ll find an oiland there, safe enough.”

“But, supposing that we donot,” I suggested; “supposing that your information happens to be incorrect; what then?”

“Ay, but itwon’tbe,” he snarled back; “it’ll be correct, and we’ll find the oiland where Oi told ye. And if we don’t, why bedad it’ll be the worse for you and the gal, for we’ll cruise for it until we find it, if we has to cruise until the Judgment Day, like the Flyin’ Dutchman!”

“All right,” I said. “If the island is where you say it is, I will find it for you, never fear. If it isnot—well, then it willnotbe found; and that is all there is about it.”

“Oi tell ye itwillbe found; itmustbe found!” shouted O’Gorman, goaded to fury at the suggestion that perhaps, after all, a dire disappointment lay in store for him. “If the oiland isn’t there, it’s somewheres thereabouts, widin a few miles more or less; and we’ve got to find it afore the hooker turns her nose towards home. Now I hopes that’s plain enough for ye.”

And, smiting the chart a mighty blow with his clenched fist, he turned on his heel and walked forward.

It need scarcely be said that after such a dogmatic statement as this I found my anxiety greatly increased; for I by this time knew the Irishman well enough to be fully aware that no mule could be more obstinate than he, and that, having once made up his mind that his island existed, he would never abandon his search until he had found it—or something that might pass for it. And I was determined that should our search prove unsuccessful, I would at once bear up for the Marquesas, and let him take his choice from among the whole group. Indeed, for a moment I felt tempted to shape as straight a course as I could for the centre of the group, without troubling to hunt for O’Gorman’s particular island at all, as I gravely doubted whether it really had an existence outside the man’s own imagination. But, on the other hand, his information was drawn from a document that, while stained and discoloured with age, had every appearance—from my casual inspection of it—of being genuine; and, if so, the island might possibly exist, although uncharted. Moreover, O’Gorman had not seized the brig and become a pirate merely to satisfy an idle curiosity as to the accuracy of the document he had produced; he was going there for a certain definite purpose; to search for something, probably; and, if so, nothing short of our arrival at that particular island would satisfy him. So, having laid off the course upon the chart, I gave it to the helmsman, and called the hands aft to trim sail.

Of our passage into the solitudes of the Pacific I have nothing to relate, save that Miss Onslow’s demeanour toward me became, if possible, more perplexing and tantalising than ever. To convey a clear and accurate idea of her varying moods it would be necessary to relate in tolerably minute detail the particulars of our daily intercourse throughout the voyage—a course of procedure which would not only expand my story far beyond its proper limits, but would also entirely alter its character—I must therefore content myself with merely stating that I believe I may, without exaggeration, assert that I never found her upon any two occasions to behave in a precisely similar manner. She appeared to regulate her treatment of me by the behaviour of the men. She had long ago abandoned that almost insolent hauteur of manner that distinguished her at the outset of our acquaintance; but if the weather was fine, the wind fair, the men upon their best behaviour—as sometimes happened—inshort,ifthings were going well with me in other respects, she invariably kept me at arm’s-length by a certain indefinable, but none the less unmistakable, coolness, indifference, and distance of manner just sufficiently pronounced to suggest a desire to be left to herself. But in proportion as difficulties, anxieties, and vexations arose, so did her manner warm to me until there were times when it became almost caressingly tender; so that, as my passion for her grew, I sometimes felt almost tempted to feign an anxiety or a distress that did not exist, for the mere delight of finding her manner warming to me. But I take credit to myself that I always resisted the temptation, fighting against it as a thing to yield to which would be mean and unmanly on my part.

In this strange and contradictory condition of alternate peace, rendered insipid by Miss Onslow’s coolness, and anxiety converted into happiness unspeakable by the warmth and tenderness of her sympathy, I carried the brig toward the spot indicated in O’Gorman’s document; and at noon on a certain day my observations showed that we had arrived within sixty miles of it. The weather was then brilliantly fine, with a gentle breeze out from about west-north-west, that wafted the brig along over the low, long mounds of the Pacific swell at a rate of about five knots; consequently, if the island happened to be in the position assigned to it, we ought to reach it about midnight. O’Gorman’s desire to be made acquainted with our exact position daily had been growing ever since we had shifted our helm after rounding the Horn, beginning as a condition of languid curiosity, which had strengthened into a state of feverish restlessness and anxiety that, on the day in question, as soon as I had conveyed to him the customary information, found vent in an order that a man should go aloft and maintain a lookout from the topgallant yard until the island should be sighted, the remainder of the crew being set to work during the afternoon to rouse out and bend the cables, and to attend to the various other matters incidental to the approach of a vessel to a port. He also had the spare spars overhauled and suitable ones selected for the purpose of erecting tents in conjunction with the brig’s old sails, from all of which I inferred that our stay at the island—should we happen to find it—would be a somewhat protracted one.

As to the probability of our finding the place, I was exceedingly doubtful; for although I was well aware that hitherto unknown islands were still occasionally being discovered in the Pacific, I was equally well aware that these new islands were almost invariably low, and of insignificant dimensions, being, in fact, merely coral reefs that have been gradually lifted above the surface of the ocean; whereas O’Gorman’s document contained mention of ahill, and the presence of a hill argued a probable existence of ages, and a consequently corresponding likelihood of comparatively early discovery.

But at two bells in the second dog-watch, that night, all doubt was put an end to by a sudden, startling cry from the lookout on the fore-topgallant yard of:

“Land ho; right ahead!”

I was on deck at the time, and far from expecting to hear such a cry; indeed so incredulous was I still that I quite concluded the man had allowed his imagination to run away with him, and was mistaking the shoulder of some low-lying cloud for distant land. So I hailed him with:

“Topgallant yard, there! are you quite sure that what you see is land, and not a hummock of cloud?”

“Yes, sir,” he shouted back; “I’mquitesure of it. I’ve been watchin’ it growin’ for the last quarter of a hour or more, and it haven’t changed its shape the least bit all that time; only growed the leastest bit bigger and clearer.”

Meanwhile, O’Gorman had sprung into the rigging and was by this time clawing his way over the rim of the top. Another minute, and he was on the topgallant yard, alongside the other man, peering ahead into the fast gathering dusk, under the sharp of his hand. He stared at it for a good five minutes; then, shouting down “It’s all right, mates; it’s land, and no mistake!” he swung himself on to the backstay, and came down on deck by way of it. He no sooner reached the deck than he plunged into the forecastle, from which he presently emerged again, bearing in his hand a packet that I presently recognised as his precious document. He came straight aft to me with it, and said:

“Now, misther, I want ye to get a bit of paper and write down the directions that Oi’ll read out to ye. Oi’m all right in deep wather, and wid plenty of say-room to come and go upon; but whin it comes to navigatin’ narrow channels, and kapin’ clear of the rocks, and takin’ a vessel to her anchorage, bedad I’m nowhere. So I’ll be obliged to ask ye to write down the instructions that Oi’ve got here, and then ye’ll take command of the brig until she’s safe at anchor.”

“Very well,” I said. “Are the instructions very long?”

“Two or three dozen words ’ll cover the lot,” answered the Irishman.

“All right,” said I; “fire away.” And drawing a pencil and paper from my pocket, I prepared to copy down whatever he might read to me.

“‘Approach island from nor’-west,’” began O’Gorman, “‘and stand towards it wid summit of hill bearin’ south-east, half-south; which leads through the passage in the barrier reef. Then haul up to south a quarter west, for the mouth of the bight at the bottom of the bay. Stand boldly in until ye come abreast of the big rock at the mouth of the bight, when clew up and furl everything. Follow the bight until ye reach the lagoon, when ye may anchor annywhere not closer than a dozen fadoms of the oiland. The gems’—oh, bedad, but that’s another matther intoirely,” he hastily concluded.

“The directions seem explicit enough,” said I; “and as no mention is made of any dangers to be avoided I suppose there are none. All the same, we shall need daylight for the job of taking the brig to the berth mentioned, so I shall stand on until four bells in the first watch, and then heave-to for the remainder of the night. At daylight we will fill away again and work round to the nor’-west side of the island, when, if the water happens to be clear, we shall perhaps be able to see the bottom from aloft, and thus safely pilot the vessel to her anchorage. I will con her myself from the fore-topmast crosstrees.”

At four bells—ten o’clock—that night, the island showed through the clear darkness upon the horizon as an irregularly-shaped pyramid, with a peak nearly in the centre of it, rising to a height which I estimated at about six or seven hundred feet. The island itself was at that time some ten miles distant, and, measured from end to end, as we then looked at it, I took it to be about four miles across. We hove the brig to, and tried a cast first with the hand lead, and then with the deep-sea lead, but got no bottom, at which I was by no means surprised, as I had already heard that many of the islands in the Pacific—especially those of coral formation—rise sheer from the very bottom of the sea.

At daybreak the next morning I was called by the steward, and, dressing, went on deck, to find that the weather was as it had been all through the preceding day, namely, a light breeze from the westward, with a cloudless sky of crystalline clearness overhead, and a long, low sluggish swell undulating athwart the gently-ruffled surface of the ocean. The island now bore about four points on our weather quarter, some sixteen miles distant; so we filled the main-topsail, got way upon the ship, and hauled up to “full-and-by,” when it was found that we should just handsomely fetch clear of the most leeward point of the land.

Viewed by the early daylight, the island presented a most attractive appearance, rising against the background of sky as a picture painted in an infinite variety of delicate purple tones of shadow, through which, with the aid of the glass, could be made out the several declivities, gorges, precipices, and ravines that went to make up the contour of the country. It was thickly wooded everywhere, seemingly from the water’s edge to within some eighty feet or so of the summit, the latter rising naked into the clear air. But attractive as it looked under the soft, subdued light of the early dawn, in the delicate monochrome of distance, and the absence of direct sunlight, it looked even more beautiful when, after sunrise, as we approached it more closely, the countless subtle variations of tint in the foliage, from this in brightest sunlight, to that in deepest, richest purple shadow, became manifest; and so powerful an impression did it make upon the men that I overheard them freely discussing the desirability of making a lengthened sojourn there.

“Yes,” said I, when O’Gorman, carried away by his enthusiasm at the beauty of the place, hinted at such a possibility, “that is all very well, and sounds very attractive just now; but has it yet occurred to you that yonder island may be peopled by a race of savages who, if we give them the opportunity, will gladly make a barbecue of all hands?”

“Phew! begorra, but Oi nivver thought of that!” he ejaculated in sudden dismay. “Oi’m obliged to ye for the hint, misther. We’ll load the guns and muskets, and make ready generally for the blagguards, if they have the impidence to be there.”

And forthwith he shambled away for’ard, unceremoniously cutting into the holiday plans that the men were busily concocting, and instructing them to load the guns and arm themselves in readiness for any emergency that might arise.

As we stood in toward the land I kept a bright lookout for smoke, for huts peeping from among the trees, for canoes hauled up on the beach, or any other indications of the presence of human life on the island, but could see nothing. At this, however, I was not very greatly surprised, for although we were on the lee side of the island, the surf was breaking so heavily all along the shore as to render it impracticable for canoes. If the island happened to be inhabited, the inhabitants would probably be found located on its weather side, which, according to O’Gorman’s document, was protected from the surf by a barrier reef, with a passage through it.

As we stood on it became apparent that the island was nearer five than four miles long—as I had estimated it to be on the previous night—that its general trend was from north-east to south-west, and that, if surveyed and laid down upon the chart, it would present a somewhat flat and irregular crescent-like plan. The barrier reef sprang from the north-east extremity of the island, sweeping seaward on the arc of a circle on its north-western side, and uniting again with the island at its south-western extremity, forming a lagoon of the same length as the island, and about three-quarters of a mile wide at its widest point. The barrier reef, in fact, constituted a magnificent natural breakwater, upon which the surf eternally broke in a loud, sullen roar of everlasting thunder, while inside it the water was smooth as a mill pond, shoaling very gradually from the reef to the shore of the island, which consisted of a narrow beach of dazzling white sand, bordered by a fringe of thousands of cocoa-nut palms, the long, plume-like branches of which swayed gently in the soft, warm morning breeze. It was on this side of the island, I concluded, that, if anywhere, traces of inhabitants would be found, and I scanned the shore carefully and anxiously through the ship’s glass in search of such; but nothing of the kind was to be seen; and I at length closed the telescope with a clash, relieved to believe that, whatever anxieties there might be awaiting me in the immediate future, trouble with hostile natives was not to be one of them.

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