We had reached to within half a mile of the point, and I was already congratulating myself upon the certainty that we should clear it, when I happened to catch a momentary glimpse, through the driving spray, of something peculiar in the appearance of the water just off the point. Surely it could not be—fate would not be so cruel—and yet—

"Breakers on the lee bow!" simultaneously reported the two men on the lookout.

Then I was not mistaken; it was broken water I had seen. Yes; there could not be a doubt about it, for while I strained my gaze in an effort to pierce the darkness a ghostly white gleam shot into the air, such as is caused by the water breaking heavily upon rocks.

"Ay, ay; I see them," I answered; then, to the man at the wheel—"Watch your helm carefully, now, my man. Keep her clean full, and let her go through the water; but do not let her go off a hair's breadth more than is necessary. You must weather that reef if you have any wish to see to-morrow's sun rise."

"I'll do my best, sir," answered the fellow, earnestly; and I saw him brace himself afresh as he fixed his eye more intently upon the weather leach of the main-topsail.

We were flying through the water—it could scarcely be called sailing—for the poor little ship was being so bitterly pressed that she scarcely rose at all to the seas now; she simply drove her sharp bows straight into the body of every sea as it came at her and ploughed her way through it, shipping at every plunge tons of water that poured in a continuous cataract over her forecastle and down into the seething swirl to leeward under which her lee rail was buried. She must have been travelling very fast, or she would not have behaved in this fashion; yet in the agony of my suspense she scarcely seemed to move at all. Despite this feeling it was sufficiently apparent that we were nearing that awful reef at headlong speed; and with every desperate forward plunge of the ship the frightful amount of lee drift we were making became also more unmistakable, momentarily increasing the doubt as to the possibility of our escape. We were now, and had been for some time, so close to the land that any attempt to wear the ship round must have inevitably resulted in her destruction; and, as to staying, that was equally out of the question under such short canvas in such a heavy sea—for the outer line of breakers was now close aboard of us; we dared not attempt to anchor in the face of that wild fury of wind and wave; and we had therefore absolutely no alternative but to keep on as we were going.

Our situation, in short, had become so critical that I felt it my duty to acquaint Sir Edgar with it forthwith; and I was on my way toward the companion in search of him when he emerged from it and joined me, the two seamen who had conveyed the inanimate body of the mate below following him and making their way forward, dodging the seas as best they might during the journey.

"I have been all this time in the mate's cabin," said the baronet, "using my utmost endeavours to restore animation, but, I keenly regret to say, without success. Captain, the poor fellow is dead!"

"I never thought otherwise from the first," said I, with a keen pang at this confirmation of my worst forebodings. "It is more than kind of you, Sir Edgar, to have taken so much trouble in the matter, and I am deeply grateful to you, the more so that it has been impossible for me to do anything for the poor fellow myself, the ship having demanded my whole attention from the moment when the squall first struck us. Well, he is at rest; his troubles are over; I believe he was a true and devout Christian, though he never made any ostentatious parade of his religion; and God will surely be gracious to him and accept his service of faithfully discharged duty and gentleness and blamelessness of life."

"Yes," said Sir Edgar, "assuredly He will. After the story you told me of his trouble in the earlier hours of this eventful night I cannot help thinking that the very manner of the poor fellow's death was an evidence of God's mercy. It was His hand that struck him down; and I feel sure that the stroke was dealt in pity rather than in anger. One has only to look upon the dead man's face and observe the perfect tranquillity of its expression to be convinced that death was absolutely painless; he must have passed the dread portal without knowing it. Meanwhile, how are we faring, captain? It seems to be blowing more furiously than ever; and are we not dangerously near the land?"

"I was seeking you to speak to you on the matter when you came on deck," said I. "It is my painful duty to inform you, Sir Edgar, that the ship is in a situation of extreme peril, and the time has arrived for us to prepare for the worst. I must ask you, therefore, to go below, arouse your family, bid them don a life-belt each—which they will find on a shelf at the head of their berths—wrap themselves in whatever they can lay hands on as a protection from the weather, and come on deck without delay. There is a formidable reef ahead of us; and, unless we can contrive to weather it, the ship will be on it and breaking-up within the next quarter of an hour!"

With an ejaculation of dismay Sir Edgar darted from my side and rushed to the cabin; and as he did so I gave the order to call the watch below. The outer extremity of the reef—so far as we could trace it—now bore barely a point on our lee bow; and every sea that met us seemed to be sending us a good two fathoms to leeward. The hoarse voice of the seaman forward who was calling the watch reached me brokenly through the deep bellowing of the gale and the loud seething of the boiling sea; and presently I could see, by the increased bulk of the group of crouching figures under the lee of the deck-house, that everybody was now out of the forecastle. The saloon party were scarcely less expeditious; for in a few minutes they, too, appeared on deck, wrapped in rugs and blankets snatched hastily from the beds upon which they had been sleeping; and I at once disposed them as comfortably as I could on the deck, under the lee of the companion and skylight, where they would be in a measure sheltered from the flying spray.

Then, calling Mr Forbes, I bade him take two hands below to collect and bring on deck all the life-belts we could muster, and serve one out to each man. This was soon done; the life-buoys were cut loose and piled in a safe and convenient position on the poop; and we were ready for any emergency. Nor were we any too soon; for we were now close upon the reef, while we had settled so far to leeward that it had become apparent to everybody that nothing short of a miracle could save us.

It was a bitter thought to me that, having brought the ship so far on her voyage, safely and prosperously, I was now about to lose her through what appeared to be nothing less than a cruel and malicious stroke of fortune. For if the gale had broken upon us during the hours of daylight, instead of in the darkness of night, we should undoubtedly have discovered the hazard of our position in time to have avoided running, as we had, blindly into this horrible death-trap. And not only should I lose the ship—a loss, it is true, that was to a great extent covered by insurance—but every scrap of property that any of us possessed on board her would also undoubtedly become the prey of the devouring sea—for there was no hope of saving anything out of the ship if she once touched that reef—and, worst of all, there was only too great a probability that many precious lives would be lost; it seemed, indeed, very questionable whether any of us could hope to escape the fury of that raging surf.

It was, however, no time for repining; still less for any yielding on my part to a feeling of despondency. I therefore called the hands under the lee of the long-boat, and in a few brief words stated to them our position, exhorted them with all the earnestness of which I was master to be cool and self-possessed at the critical moment, and to put their trust in the mercy of God; impressing upon them that only by such self-possession, coupled with promptest obedience to orders, could there be any hope of saving their lives; and I wound up by reminding them that there were women and children on board whose only hope of preservation lay in the courage and obedience which I now exhorted them to exercise.

As I completed my brief address the deep, thunderous boom of the sea upon the reef broke for the first time upon our ears, as though to warn us that the moment of trial was at hand; and, looking anxiously ahead, I saw that the outer extremity of the white water was already dead ahead of us, and that the ship was doomed!

"We shall never weather it, lads," I shouted; "we cannot possibly do it. Stand by the braces, fore and main, and be ready to square the yards when I give the word to bear up. We shall have to run her in upon the beach, and take our chance of its being softer ground than the reef. As soon as you have squared the yards and caught a turn with the braces, come up on the poop, all of you, and group yourselves well aft; it will be the safest part of the ship when she broaches to, and you will be out of the way of the falling masts. Take a firm grip of the most solid thing you can lay hold of, or the first sea that breaks over us will wash you overboard."

So saying, I sprang aft and stationed myself close to the little group of cowering women and children who were huddled together under the lee of the skylight, in readiness to afford such protection and help to them as might be possible in the impending desperate and almost hopeless struggle for life.

The final moment had now arrived; the white water was almost under the bows of the ship; another plunge or two would put the poor little craft plump upon the reef; and with a heavy heart I turned to the helmsman to give him the fatal sign. As I did so, a loud flap overhead and the simultaneous righting of the ship caused me to glance aloft in amazement and wonder as to what was happening. Could it be? By Heaven, yes! The wind had dropped, as if by magic, or a miracle, and for the moment there was a breathless calm, leaving us within fifty fathoms of the reef and, with the momentum of our rapid progress through the water, rushing straight at it. Instinctively I bounded with one mad spring to the wheel, and, shouting to the bewildered man who held it, "Hard down, for your life!" I grasped the spokes, throwing the momentary strength of ten men into a frantic effort that sent the wheel whirling over at lightning speed. The noble little ship quickly and gallantly answered to the impulse, and, though pitching so desperately that she completely smothered herself as far aft as the foremast, her bows gradually swept round until they pointed straight out to seaward and away from the boiling surf that actually swirled and seethed about her cutwater, as though the poor little overdriven craft had suddenly realised her awful peril and had swerved from it like a sentient thing.

"Man the braces, fore and main!" I shouted with frenzied eagerness. "Round-in upon the starboard main and topsail braces, for your lives, men; shift over the trysail-sheet like lightning! Hurrah, lads! over with it before the gale strikes us again! Well there with the starboard main-braces; haul taut and make fast to port; swing your head-yards; and get the starboard staysail sheet aft. Here comes the wind again; but, thank God, we are saved!"

No one but a sailor—and probably no sailor but he who has passed through such an unique experience as I have just been endeavouring to describe—can possibly understand the startling suddenness and the astounding rapidity with which such an utterly unhoped-for and unexpected change had been wrought in our situation. The whole thing had happened with the breathless rapidity characteristic of the headlong rush of succeeding events in a dream. At the very moment when I was about to give the order which would have sent the ship flying before wind and sea towards the beach, and insured her destruction, there had occurred one of those sudden and unaccountable "breaks," or total cessations of wind, that occasionally, though very rarely, occur for a few brief moments in the midst of a raging tempest, and which are sometimes succeeded by a total change in the direction of the wind when it recommences to blow. These "breaks" are very similar in their character and duration to the passage of "the eye" of a cyclone, with which phenomenon, indeed, they are often confounded; and it was during that brief lull that the helm had been put down, and the ship, by God's mercy—though plunging so wildly in the seas that met her that I fully expected to see her masts go over the bows—had been got round on the other tack, with her head pointing to seaward before the recurrence of the gale.

In the ecstasy of my delight and gratitude at such a sudden and unlooked-for change in our situation I had cried aloud that we were saved; without waiting to see from what point the gale would come when it again struck us. Had it happened to have veered two or three points we should, as a matter of fact, have been just as badly off as before, for in that case the other headland or horn of the bay would soon have brought us up. Fortunately, however, the wind came away a trifle more free for us than it had hitherto been, so that when it again struck us the ship headed fairly well for the open sea. That sudden break, however, proved to be the beginning of the end; for though for perhaps a quarter of an hour it blew as furiously as ever, it then began to moderate rapidly; and the glorious, unclouded sun rose upon us as we were once more mast-heading our topsail-yards after loosing and setting the courses.

The safety of the ship once assured, I went below and entered the chief mate's cabin, to view the body and assure myself, beyond all possibility of doubt, of the fact of dissolution. A single look sufficed for this; for although only some six hours had elapsed since the poor fellow had been alive and hearty, there was already a distinct discolouration of the skin, to say nothing of other unmistakable signs that death had really taken place. Sailors are not, as a rule, given to much sentimentalism; they are so constantly being brought face to face with death that in a comparatively short time it loses much of that impressiveness with which it affects the landsman; but this man had been a true friend and comrade as well as a faithful servant to me, and I am not ashamed to acknowledge that the tears sprang to my eyes as I knelt by the side of the body and offered up a short prayer ere I looked my last upon him. This done, I returned to the deck and gave the necessary orders to have the body sewn in a hammock, and made ready for burial with all expedition.

I was by this time feeling somewhat fagged, having been on deck for fully twenty-four hours, one-third of which time had been passed in a state of great anxiety; having therefore answered for the present every call upon my attention, and satisfied myself that I could very well be spared for a few hours, I retired to my cabin, giving the steward orders to call me at four bells, at which hour I had arranged for the burial of poor Roberts having long before acquired the sailor's habit of falling asleep at a moment's notice, my head no sooner pressed the pillow than I sank into a sound and dreamless slumber.

At the appointed hour the steward awoke me; and on reaching the deck I was much moved and gratified to observe that not only were all hands on deck, "cleaned and shifted" in anticipation of the mournful ceremony that lay before us, but also that Sir Edgar and his whole family intended to pay the last tribute of respect to the dead man, they having mustered upon the poop in the nearest approach to mourning attire that their resources permitted. It is not my intention to here enter into a long and detailed description of the solemn and impressive rite that quickly followed; it has been done more than once or twice by far abler pens than mine, and is to be found in books that are read the wide world over. There is therefore no need for me to attempt to inform my readers upon a subject with which they are doubtless already sufficiently well acquainted; suffice it to say that no form or detail was omitted which could in any wise testify to our respect and esteem for our lost comrade and friend, or add to the decency and solemnity with which we consigned his body to its last resting-place in the depths of the illimitable ocean. This done, I promoted Forbes to the position of chief mate; raised the boatswain to the dignity of "second officer;" and so brought the incident of poor Roberts's tragic fate to a close.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A GHASTLY WAIF OF THE SEA.

Our voyage had, thus far, proved to be an unusually eventful one; yet it was to be made the more notable ere its close by the addition of still one more incident, and that, too, of a sufficiently ghastly character, to the catalogue of those already recorded. It occurred on the tenth day after our brush with the Malays in the Straits of Sunda, and when we were about midway across the China Sea.

Since that wild night on which we had so nearly laid the bones of the Esmeralda—and possibly our own as well—to rest on the shores of Sumatra, we had met with uninterrupted bright sunshine and light, favourable breezes. The day on which the incident occurred was no exception to the rule. The weather was gloriously fine, with a rich, softly mottled sky of blue and white overhead, out of the midst of which the afternoon sun blazed fiercely down upon a smooth, sparkling sea, gently ruffling under the faint, warm breeze to a surface of pale, glowing sapphire, along which the barque, wooing the soft zephyr with studding-sails spread on both sides, from the royals down, swam with a sleepy, rhythmical swaying of her taunt spars, at a speed of some five knots in the hour.

It was close upon eight bells of the afternoon watch, and the saloon party were all on deck, grouped under the shadow of the awning; the elders lounging in easy, unconventional attitudes in capacious basket-chairs, the women, attired in snowy white, beguiling the time by making a pretence at working at some embroidery, or fancy sewing of some kind, as they fitfully conversed upon such topics as occurred to them; while Sir Edgar, clothed in flannels, with a Panama hat tilted well forward over his eyes, smoked and read with an air of placid enjoyment; the youngsters, apparently less affected than the rest of us by the languorous heat of the weather, meanwhile indulging in a game at hide-and-seek about the decks with the ship's cat.

Of the hands forward, some of the watch were aloft, working at odd jobs about the rigging, while the drowsy clinking of a spunyarn winch somewhere on the forecastle, in the shadow of the head sails, accounted for the remainder. Most of the watch below were invisible; but two or three industrious ones had grouped themselves on the foredeck, in situations which secured at once a sufficiency of shadow and a maximum of breeze, and were smoking and chatting as they washed or repaired their clothing.

As for me, I was indulging in a brief spell of perfect bodily idleness, and had established myself in my own particular wicker chair, near the break of the poop, and, with hands crossed behind my head and cigar in mouth, was lazily watching a man on the main-royal yard who was reeving a new set of signal halliards, while my mind was busy upon the apparently insoluble problem of finding the key to the cipher relating to Richard Saint Leger's buried treasure.

The signal halliards had just been successfully rove when eight bells were struck, and the man who had been reeving them—now off duty—was preparing leisurely to descend to the deck, when, as nine out of every ten sailors will, he paused to take a last, long, comprehensive look round the horizon. There was not a sail of any sort in sight from the deck, not even so much as the glancing of a bird's wing against the warm, tender, grey tones of the horizon to arrest one's wandering glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the attitude of the man up there from that of listless indifference to awakened curiosity and interest. His gaze grew earnest and attentive; then he shaded his eyes with his hand, and his body assumed an attitude and expression of alertness. Long and steadily he maintained his gaze in one fixed direction; then he glanced down on deck, and, catching sight of me with my face upturned toward him, he hailed—

"On deck, there! There's something away out here on the starboard bow, sir, as has the look of a boat adrift."

"How does it bear, and how far off is it?" I inquired.

"About two points on the starboard bow, and a matter of eight or ten mile off, I should say, sir," was the reply.

"Mr Forbes," said I to the mate, who, the watch having just been called, at this moment came on deck from his cabin, "take the glass aloft, and see what you can make of this new wonder, if you please."

Forbes went to the companion, took the telescope out of the beckets, slung it over his shoulders, and leisurely ascended the fore-rigging until he reached the topmast cross-trees, in which he comfortably settled himself preparatory to a careful inspection of the object. Meanwhile, the other man maintained his position on the main-royal yard.

"Now then, Joe, where do you say this precious 'something' of yours is?" inquired the mate as he unslung the telescope and proceeded to adjust it for use.

"There it is, sir," answered the man, pointing; "about a couple of points on the starboard bow. I don't know as you'll be able to see it from down there, Mr Forbes, but it's plain enough—"

"All right; I see it," interrupted Forbes; and he forthwith raised the telescope to his eye, taking a prolonged and exhaustive look through it. At length, lowering the instrument, he turned in his seat, and, looking down upon me where I now stood, just forward of the mainmast, hailed—

"Joe is quite right, sir. There certainly is something out there, but it is fully twelve miles away, and it looks uncommonly like a boat with a mast stepped and a sail hoisted, or a signal flying.—I can't quite make out which—and I even fancy I can catch an occasional glimpse of people moving about in her; but she wavers so much in the glass that I can't be at all sure about it."

"Very well; just keep your eye on her for a moment," I answered back, "and let me know when she bears straight ahead. It will not take us much out of our way to give her an overhaul, and it is as well to make quite sure in such cases as this. Man your braces, fore and aft, the starboard watch; larboard watch, go to work and get in the larboard stu'n'sails. Port your helm a trifle,"—to the man at the wheel. "Round-in a foot or two upon the larboard braces!"

As these manoeuvres were executed, the barque's bows slowly inclined to the eastward, and presently Forbes hailed from his lofty perch—

"S-o, stead-y! Whatever she may be, she is now dead on end to a hair's breadth."

"How is her head?" I shouted to the man at the wheel.

The fellow peered into the binnacle, and answered—

"North-east-and-by-east, three-quarters east."

"Is the boat—or whatever it is—still straight ahead, Mr Forbes?" I inquired.

"Straight to a hair, sir," came the reply.

"Then keep her at that," I called to the helmsman. "Well there with the braces; belay! Overhaul the main clew-garnets and get the sheet aft. Roll up the awning aft here, some of you, and haul out the mizzen; then jump aloft, one hand, and loose the gaff-topsail."

The ship was by this time astir and in a little flutter of excitement, fore and aft, at the prospect of another break in the monotony of our existence. Forecastle Jack is not, as a rule, very demonstrative; it appears to be regarded as "bad form" to exhibit excitement under any circumstances, or undue animation unless when confronted with some great and sudden crisis. Then, indeed, his movements are as active and springy as those of a cat; but, unless there is some pressing necessity for nimbleness, Jack regards it as the correct thing and a duty he owes to his own dignity to be deliberate of action. And, above all, whatever the circumstances, there must be no exhibition of vulgar curiosity, no eagerness, no enthusiasm, no astonishment while one of ocean's countless mysteries is unfolding itself before his eyes; he must exhibit an air of semi-contemptuous indifference, as who should say, "I am a seasoned hand—a shell-back, and none of your beach-combers. I have long been familiar with all the strange sights and sounds and vicissitudes to be met with upon the broad ocean; for me the tale of them is exhausted; so far as I am concerned there is nothing new under the sun, nothing so strange or unexpected as to be capable of arousing my interest, nothing that can astonish or disconcert me." The effect of this unspoken tradition was apparent in the studied carelessness of the one or two inquiries that were addressed to the man Joe, when at length he descended from aloft and rejoined his mates on the forecastle-head. But the indifference was only assumed; and as Joe—who, in his character of first discoverer, was entitled to the privilege of unrestrained loquacity—stated not only what he had seen, but also what he now fancied he had seen—his imagination rapidly supplying him with fresh details even as he talked—his group of listeners gradually closed in round him; questions were asked, conjecture was indulged in, and every now and then the little conclave temporarily lost control of itself, and, yielding to the sympathy and excitement that was quickening its pulses, began to discuss eagerly the chances for and against some possibility that had been advanced by one of its number. As for my passengers, they were the slaves of no such code as that which influenced the lads forward; they yielded at once and without restraint to the feeling of solicitude and sympathy that was awakened within them at the news of the waif ahead, with its possible freight of physical suffering or still worse torment of mental anxiety, apprehension, and hope deferred "that maketh the heart sick" and breaks down all but the most stubborn courage, and fairly swamped me with eager questions and suggestions that, while they exhibited very effectively the goodness of heart of the speakers, were not of much practical value.

I succeeded at length in effecting my escape from these good people, and, arming myself with the ship's glass, set out for Forbes' coign of vantage—the fore-topmast cross-trees—to see what news the lapse of an hour might enable me to discover. I found, however, that there was no need for me to travel so far, for before I had mounted halfway up the lower rigging I caught sight of the object of my quest quivering in the hot air, upon the verge of the horizon straight ahead. I therefore settled myself comfortably in the top, from which convenient platform I made a minute and prolonged inspection of her.

It needed not a second glance through the powerful instrument I wielded to assure me that the object ahead was indeed a boat, and that she carried a spar of some sort on end with something fluttering from it— whether sail or signal I could not tell, for the rarefied air through which I viewed her so distorted her shape and proportions that it bore as much resemblance to the one as to the other; but, if a sail, it was certainly doing no good, for I could see by the peculiar lift and flap of it that both tack and sheet were adrift. As to whether she had any occupants or not, I could not for the life of me determine; for although I remained aloft there in the top for a good half-hour, with my eye glued to the telescope all the while, only once did I detect what had the appearance of something moving on board her; but the sight was so transitory and unsatisfactory that I might easily have been mistaken. However, we had by this time neared her to within some five miles; so, as another hour would decide the question, I determined to possess my soul in patience until then, and accordingly closed the telescope, slung it over my shoulder, and returned to the deck. As I wended my way down the ratlines I noticed two of the men—who were now supposed to be busily engaged in clearing up the decks after the work of the day— standing halfway up the topgallant forecastle ladder, and staring so intently ahead that they were altogether oblivious of my close proximity, from which I concluded that the boat must be already visible to them. As I swung myself out of the rigging on to the deck I heard one of them exclaim to the other—

"There, did ye see that? I swear I saw somebody get up and wave his hand, and then fall back again into the bottom of the boat!"

This description answered so accurately to what I thought I also had seen through the glass, that the doubts I had hitherto entertained as to the presence of people on board the boat now began to yield to the belief that there were, especially as the man who had just spoken bore the reputation of being the keenest-sighted man in the ship. I held my peace, however, and made my way aft to the poop, where Sir Edgar and his party—himself and the two ladies armed with binoculars—were still assembled, eagerly scanning the horizon ahead.

"Oh, captain," exclaimed Lady Emily, as I joined the little group, "is it really true that there are shipwrecked people in that little boat? You have been up there watching it for so long through your telescope that you will be able to tell us for certain."

"I am afraid I cannot do anything of the kind," answered I. "It is true that for a single moment I thought I detected a movement of some kind on board her; but, if so, it was not repeated, and I therefore scarcely know what to think. However, we shall soon know now. Of one thing I feel sure, and that is that, if there are any people in that boat, they must be in the last stage of exhaustion, or a better lookout would have been maintained, our proximity discovered, and some effort made ere now, either to reach us or to attract our attention."

"Do you mean that you think it possible there are people actually dying in that boat?"

"If she really contains any human beings it would not in the least surprise me were we to find them in that condition; dying, too, one of the most dreadful deaths that man can be called upon to endure, a slow, lingering agony—the indescribable, maddening torment of long-continued hunger and thirst," said I.

"Oh, what an awful possibility to contemplate!" murmured her ladyship, her face blanching at the picture my words had conjured up. "Poor creatures! how frightful to think that—"

"By Heaven, there is at least one living being in that boat!" interrupted Sir Edgar, excitedly, as he lowered his binoculars and turned to me. "See, captain,"—looking again toward the boat—"you can distinguish him with the naked eye."

At the same moment Forbes hailed from the topgallant forecastle—

"There's a man in that boat, sir! Do you see him waving to us?"

"Yes," I answered, as I caught a momentary glimpse of an upright figure that seemed to give a single wave with its arm and then collapse into the bottom of the boat. "Let go your fore-royal halliards, Mr Forbes, and run the ensign up to the royal-masthead. That will give them to understand that we have seen them."

This was done, and after an interval that seemed quite long, but was probably less than half a minute from the hoisting of our signal, I again saw—this time through the telescope—a figure rise up in the boat, wave its arm, and sink down again.

"That man is in the very last stage of exhaustion," said I to the Desmond party generally; "I am sure of it, or he would not act as he does. His sail, you see, is all adrift; yet he makes no effort whatever to secure it and head the boat toward us, nor does he attempt to get out an oar to lessen his distance from us. Unless I am altogether mistaken, the unfortunate creature has been driven clean out of his senses by the tortures of thirst and exposure, and does not know what he is doing; the little strength he has left being due entirely to the raging fever in his veins."

"I am afraid you are right, captain," agreed Sir Edgar, whose binoculars were again glued to his eyes.

Lady Emily audibly sobbed as she clasped her beautiful white hands convulsively together, and pressed them tightly to her breast; the tears sprang to her eyes, and she stamped her foot impatiently on the deck as she exclaimed—

"Oh, mercy! shall we never, never reach them?"

Miss Merrivale exhibited her sympathy in a totally different and far more practical way than her sister. Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes flashed with excitement as she laid her hand upon my arm, and said—

"Captain, be pleased to understand that you may count upon me to assist you in the treatment of those unfortunate people, as soon as you have got them safely on board here. I know exactly what to do, for, singularly enough, I was reading only this morning an account of a very similar rescue to this, effected by a British man-o'-war, some years ago. The narrative fully describes the measures adopted by the ship's doctor in the treatment of his patients; I have, therefore, all the information at my fingers' ends, and you may confidently trust me not to forget anything. I shall go below now, and make my preparations at once."

"Thank you, most heartily," said I. "Such assistance as you proffer will be of priceless value, and may indeed be the means of saving many lives. I accept it cordially, and with the deepest gratitude."

"I will go with you, Agnes," exclaimed Lady Emily; "I am sure I, too, can help, if you will only tell me what to do."

And, to my unspeakable relief, the two charming women retired to the saloon, taking the nurses with them.

"I am heartily glad that the ladies have left the deck," said I to Sir Edgar, as his eyes followed his wife's form to the companion, "and I fervently hope that they will remain below until this business is over; for, to speak plainly, I am beginning to fear that when that boat is brought alongside she will present such a sight as no delicate, susceptible woman could endure to look upon without sustaining a terrible and long-enduring shock."

"Say you so?" ejaculated Sir Edgar. "Then I will go at once and tell them that they are on no account to come on deck until they have your permission. I am greatly obliged to you for the hint, captain."

Every eye in the ship was by this time riveted upon the boat ahead, which was now distinctly visible; but no further movement had been observed on board her, and I began to dread the possibility that, after all, our appearance upon the scene might prove to be too late. So anxious, indeed, did I now feel that, although Forbes several times looked aft at me, and then meaningly aloft at the studding-sails, I would not give the order to start tack or sheet, but held on with everything to the very last moment, feeling pretty confident that, in such light weather, we might safely round-to all standing.

At length, after what seemed an interminable interval, we arrived within half a mile of the boat; and now the barque was kept slightly away, in order that we might have room to round-to and shoot up alongside the small craft without giving her occupants the trouble to out oars and pull to us. This brought her out clear of our starboard bow, and afforded us on the poop a better opportunity than we had yet enjoyed of scrutinising her from that position; of which Sir Edgar, who had again joined me, took the fullest advantage, keeping his binoculars levelled upon her without a moment's intermission. Yet all this time no further movement had been observed on board her, although she was now so close to us that, had such been made, it could not possibly have escaped our notice. She was a ship's gig, about twenty-four feet long, painted green, and she floated too light in the water to have many people in her. She was rigged with a single short mast, stepped well forward, upon which an old and well-worn lugsail was set—or, rather, hoisted— for the tack had parted, the sheet was adrift, and the yard hung nearly up and down the mast, the foot of the sail hanging over the port side and trailing in the water. Her rudder was shipped, and swayed idly from side to side as the boat rocked gently upon the low swell and the small ripples that followed her in her slow drift before the dying breeze. Her paint looked faded and sea-washed in the ruddy glow of the setting sun; her bottom, along the water-line, showed a grey coating of incipient barnacles, and there were many other indications about her that to a sailor's eye was proof conclusive of the fact that she had been in the water for several days.

As I noted these particulars through the telescope, while we were approaching her, my attention was arrested by a movement and occasional swirl in the water round about her; and, looking more intently, I presently descried the triangular dorsal fin of a shark in close proximity to the boat's side. Looking more closely still, I saw another, and another, and yet another, and still others; so that, as I looked, the boat seemed to be surrounded by sharks, hemmed in and fairly beset by them. The water all about her was literally alive with them; its surface all a-swirl with their eager, restless movements as they swam to and fro and darted hither and thither, circling round the little craft and away from her, only to turn sharply, with a whisk of the tail that left a white foam-fleck and a miniature whirlpool on the gleaming surface of the water, and force their way back to her side through the jostling crowd of their companions.

"Do you see that swarm of sharks crowding round the boat, Sir Edgar?" said I. "Take my word for it, there is a corpse—perhaps several—in her, and I am glad that the ladies are not on deck. Lay aft here, lads, to the main-braces, and back the mainyard. Ease your helm down, and steer up alongside her,"—to the man at the wheel. "Stand by, one hand, to jump down into the boat with a rope's-end and make fast."

We were now so close to the little craft that, with the small air there was abroad, my voice, as I addressed the men, could have been distinctly heard at a considerable distance beyond her; and there is no doubt that it and the answering cries of the crew reached the ears of the castaway whom we had already seen; for as, in obedience to her helm, the bows of the barque swept slowly round towards the boat, a figure—a ghastly figure, with scarce a semblance of humanity remaining to it—rose up in the stern-sheets and looked at us. I shall never forget the sight, to my dying day. It was a man, clad in the remains of a shirt, and a pair of once blue cloth trousers that had become a dirty, colourless grey by long exposure to the sun and frequent saturation with salt-water. The head was bare, and thatched with a thick shock of grey, matted hair that still retained a streak of brown in it here and there to tell what its original colour had been; and the face was shrouded in a dense growth of matted grey beard and whisker; the skin, where exposed, was scorched to a deep purple red by the fierce rays of the sun. All this, however, was as nothing compared with the gauntness and emaciation of the man. The face, or at least that portion of it which was not hidden by the jungle of beard, was that of a death's head, a fleshless skull with a skin of blistered parchment strained so tightly over it that the cheek-bones seemed to be on the point of breaking through; while the eyes, but for the sparkle of the fever in them, would have been invisible, so deeply were they sunk within their sockets. The rest of his frame was evidently in like condition; his bare arms and exposed shanks seeming literally to be nothing but skin and bone, without a particle of flesh upon them.

For a space of, perhaps, ten seconds, this grisly phantom stood motionless in the boat, staring blankly at us; then, when the ship was within some twenty fathoms of him, he threw his gaunt, bony arms above his head, and with a wild, eldritch yell, such as I had never heard before, and hope never to hear again, he half sprang, half tumbled over the side of the boat into the water, and, with a frenzied energy such as few sound, strong men could have exhibited, struck out for the ship.

A wild cry of dismay arose from our decks, fore and aft, at this unlooked-for act of madness; and then, with one accord, all hands, myself included, dashed to the starboard quarter-boat and, while the first comers flung the coiled-up falls off the pins and cut the gripes adrift, Forbes and four others scrambled into her and, with wild eagerness, thrust the rowlocks into their sockets, slashed the oars adrift, and made ready to unhook and give way on the instant that she should touch the water.

But of what avail was it all? Even while working with the others at the boat I never for an instant lost sight of the maniac swimmer. I noted the splash of his plunge into the water, and saw the white swirl raised by the startled sharks as he precipitated himself into their midst; I saw, too, the vigour with which he swam, and my ears tingled with the wild, horrible cry he uttered at every stroke. For a brief space, perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, not a solitary shark's fin was to be seen; the surface of the water was unbroken, save by the madman's long and eager strokes. Then, all round about him the golden sheen was darkened into blue and churned to hissing white by the simultaneous rush of that horde of sea-tigers, and, with a single faint, hoarse, bubbling cry, the swimmer was gone!

"Too late! too late! hold on with the boat," I cried. "The poor wretch is gone; torn to pieces by the sharks! Now let us see if there is anybody else—faugh! What on earth is the meaning of this?"

The exclamation was forced from me by an overpowering effluvium that at the moment swept on board us from the drifting boat, which was now on our weather-bow, and close aboard of us. As she dropped alongside, in the wake of the fore chains, all hands crowded to the rail to look down into her; while one smart fellow, with a rope's-end in his hand, was already over the side, clinging to a channel-iron, with one foot upon its bolt-head, ready to drop into her and make fast. But the odour that arose from the little craft and assailed our nostrils was so unendurable, and the sight that her interior revealed was so dreadful and revolting, that we recoiled as one man, and allowed the boat with her awful freight to scrape slowly along the ship's side from the fore chains to the taffrail, without an effort to secure her. To do so would indeed have been utterly useless, for that first glance down into her amply sufficed to assure us all that the forms lying prone there were dead and rotting corpses. They were those of two men, a lad of sixteen or seventeen, a woman, and a child of some eight or ten years old; the clothing of the two last mentioned being of so fine a texture and make as to suggest that the wearers must have been people of some consequence.

A small breaker, with the bung out, and obviously empty, stood at the foot of the mast, with a tin dipper beside it; while the lower half of a sailor's sea boot, with the sole only of its fellow, lying in the stern-sheets, in company with a sailor's sheath-knife, told only too plainly of the terrible straits to which the poor creatures had been driven to quell the craving torments of hunger. The words "La Belle Amelie, Marseille," deeply carved in the transom, gave us the name and nationality of the ship to which this dreadful waif had once belonged, and completed the details of the entry which I that same evening made in my official log-book.

The barque still having way upon her, the boat slowly scraped along our side until she reached our starboard quarter; and there—the halliard of the sail, which served also as a mast shroud, fouling our main-brace bumpkin—she hung, and refused to drag clear. Seeing this, and anxious to rid the ship of such hideous companionship, the mate whipped out his knife and, getting down upon the bumpkin, cut through the halliard, thus releasing the boat and, at the same time, letting the sail down by the run and sending the extremity of the yard crashing through her bottom. She now drifted clear; and, our mainyard being at the same time filled and the helm put hard up, we paid off and began to draw away from her, noting, meanwhile, that she was gradually filling with water. The sharks still stuck pertinaciously to her; and as she settled lower in the water it was horrible to see with what increasing eagerness and determination they crowded round and strove to overturn her. At length, when her gunwale was almost flush with the water's edge, they apparently succeeded; for we saw her mast begin to rock and sway, and then, while the blue of the water all about her with the surge of their struggling bodies was frothed into creamy white and spurting spray by their fierce plunges, the spar heeled suddenly over and disappeared. Happily we were by this time too far away to note the details in this final scene of the ghastly drama; but, taking a last look through the telescope, a few minutes later, I was able to make out the hull of the boat floating bottom up. The swarm of sharks had vanished.

On the fifth day following, we arrived, without further incident, in the Canton river; and Sir Edgar and his party went ashore and took up their quarters in the best hotel in Hong Kong, while we went to work with all expedition to discharge our cargo.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE SOLUTION OF THE CRYPTOGRAM.

I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger's cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the document and testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the little Esmeralda was something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney, with the promise of quick despatch.

This matter arranged to my satisfaction, I had a little leisure on my hands; and the first use I made of it was to call upon the Desmonds at their hotel, in fulfilment of a promise extracted from me by them when they were leaving the ship. I found them just about to sit down to luncheon, at which meal they insisted that I should join them; and we had no sooner settled ourselves at the table than I was pelted with questions as to what I had been doing with myself since our parting; why had I not called before? had I decided upon my future movements? etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I replied by enumerating a few of the infinitude of business matters that a shipmaster usually has to attend to immediately upon his arrival in port—especially if that port be a foreign one—and, in conclusion, told them that, having resolved to remain in Eastern waters until I should have either discovered the interpretation of my ancestor's cryptogram, or should be driven to abandon all hope of ever solving the riddle, I had accepted a freight for Sydney, New South Wales; jestingly adding that they had better make up their minds to take passage with me.

As I said this I observed a quick interchange of glances between Sir Edgar, his wife, and Miss Merrivale; and then the former remarked—

"Well now, captain, it is very singular, but it is nevertheless a fact, that no longer ago than this morning at breakfast we practically made up our minds that, before returning home, we would go on to Australia, and see something of that wonderful country. An old friend and college chum of mine has settled there and gone in for sheep-farming upon a large scale, and, our conversation happening to turn upon him a few days ago, my wife made the curious discovery that he is the man who married the bosom friend and companion of her boarding-school days; the result being that a half jocular proposal of mine that we should extend our wanderings to Australia and beat up the quarters of these good folk has crystallised into the serious resolution to do so, provided that suitable passenger accommodation to take us there can be met with. This accident of your having accepted a freight for Sydney settles that part of the question, of course, for we will go with you—that is, if you are willing to have us again."

I protested, heartily and truthfully, that no proposal could give me greater pleasure. Whereupon it was then and there arranged that the party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar—asking me to roughly calculate for him the probable date of our arrival—sat down and wrote to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.

This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon accommodation for the passage, and, at the same time, the continued society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to regard as staunch personal friends.

Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir Edgar and his party to take passage in the Esmeralda.

The passage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmond party.

The first—and what seemed to me infinitely the most important—of these was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard Saint Leger's secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as myself.

It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when the force of circumstances would compel me to shape a course once more for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became increasingly anxious to discover the interpretation of the cryptogram before the conclusion of the passage upon which we were then engaged. No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the secrets of the exasperating cipher. The document consisted, as the reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures—with the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text, which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings—and I knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word, either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my appetite failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.

In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have been at cross-purposes with me, and—utterly worn out with the prolonged tension upon my nerves—ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless, nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I— still in my dream—set to work upon the translation of the document, and was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room door, and the steward's voice announcing, "Six bells, sir," (the time at which I was regularly called every morning), awoke me; and in that same instant I lost all recollection of every particular of my dream, remembering only that in it I really seemed to have at last found the solution of the hitherto inexplicable enigma.

Seriously annoyed at so inopportune an interruption to a dream that I quite regarded as a revelation, and vexed at my inability to recollect any more of the process of translation which I had followed than that it was an entirely novel one, I took my usual salt-water bath, dressed, and in due course sat down to breakfast, all the while striving desperately but unsuccessfully to recall the lost clue. My passengers observed my preoccupation, and endeavoured—for some time unavailingly—to withdraw me from it; at length, however, the consciousness dawned upon me that my peculiar behaviour must appear to them decidedly discourteous. I therefore aroused myself, threw off my abstraction, and apologised; explaining that I had been endeavouring to recall the details of a dream in which I seemed to have discovered the long-sought key to the secret of my hidden treasure.

"A dream!" exclaimed Miss Merrivale, delighted. "Oh, captain, pray tell us all about it; it may help you to remember."

I had no such hope, having already racked my brain until it seemed to reel, and all to no purpose; but it would have been childish to have refused the request. I therefore began by telling them how that I had retired on the preceding night with my mind full of the subject; how I had lain tossing restlessly, hour after hour, striving to think out some arrangement or system that I had not yet tried; and how eventually I had sunk into a feverish, nightmare slumber in which my brain continued its arduous, painful search for the key of the problem.

"At length," continued I, "an idea came to me; and, taking a sheet of paper, I—I—Why, by all that is wonderful, I have it again!"

And, springing from my chair, to the no small consternation of my companions, who evidently thought I had suddenly gone demented, I rushed away to my state-room and, seizing a sheet of paper, jotted down the system that had just recurred to my memory. Then, heedless of my unfinished breakfast and everything else, I drew out the precious document itself, and, using the key that had come to me in such an extraordinary manner, soon discovered, to my inexpressible delight, that I really was at last upon the right track. I met with a few difficulties, it was true; but, braced-up and encouraged by what I had already achieved, I speedily surmounted them, and, after somewhat more than an hour's patient labour, succeeded in evolving the following:—

"Latitude 3 degrees 40 minutes South; longitude 139 degrees 18 minutes West. Approached from the south-west the island, at a distance of fifteen leagues, bears the exact likeness of the face of a man floating on the water. Steer for the hollow between mouth and chin, and ye shall find a river, which boldly enter, and sail up it a distance of three furlongs to the creek on starboard hand; pass into the creek and land on the island. The treasure lies buried at a spot one thousand feet due south from the base of the obelisk rock."

I was so elated at this discovery, the mental relief and exhilaration were so great that, in the exuberance of my delight, I felt constrained to acquaint my friends with my success; and rushing up on the poop with the cryptogram and its rough translation in my hand, I sat down by the open skylight, close to which Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were seated, and presenting the baronet with the documents, said—

"There, Sir Edgar, read that; and never hereafter dare to assert that there is nothing in dreams!"

"I do not remember that I have ever yet made the assertion," he retorted laughingly. "But do you really mean to say that you have at length mastered the secret of the cipher?" as he took the paper from me, and forthwith read it aloud for the benefit of his wife and Miss Merrivale, the latter having joined us at her sister's call.

"Well," exclaimed Lady Emily, when her husband had finished, "it is really wonderful! quite the kind of thing that one reads of in books but does not believe, because one seldom or never meets with anything like it in real life. But so many strange things have happened during this eventful voyage of ours, that I shall never again be incredulous of anything."

"Quite so, my dear," agreed Sir Edgar. "Never commit yourself to the statement that you disbelieve anything. To refuse credence simply because one cannot understand, or because to our limited understanding the occurrence seems unlikely or impossible, is an infallible indication of ignorance. The wider our experience, and the deeper our knowledge, the more ready are we to admit that there may be many wonders that have never come within the limits of our ken, and about which we know nothing. But, about the key to the cryptogram, what is it? You must tell us that, you know, Saint Leger, in consideration of our own unsuccessful efforts to help you. Besides, the knowledge of such a difficult cipher as that is really worth having; who can say how soon, or under what circumstances, it might be found useful for purposes of secret communication?"

"Oh, it is ridiculously simple, when you know it," said I. "All you have to do is to number each letter of the alphabet consecutively, beginning with A and calling it eleven. Then, with the cryptogram before you, you divide the figures into series of four, each four figures representing a letter. Subtract the first pair of figures from the second, and the remainder gives you the number of the letter as you have it in your key. For example: the first four figures in the document are 1133; that is to say, eleven and thirty-three. The difference between them is twenty-two, which, you see, represents the letter L in the key. Then take the next four figures, treating them in the same way, and so on throughout the document. One great advantage of such an arrangement appears to me to be that, however many times the same letter occurs in a document, it need never be represented twice in exactly the same way, which certainly must greatly tend to preserve the secrecy of the cipher. There are no spaces, you observe, to mark the divisions between the several words; but that offers no difficulty whatever when one possesses the key; while—to my cost I know it—it adds tremendously to the difficulty when one does not. Then, again, the figures of the latitude and longitude are given just as they would be in an ordinary document, which brought me completely to a standstill for a little while, until I happily guessed at the explanation; but after passing these stumbling-blocks, the rest was perfectly plain sailing."

"Quite so," acquiesced Sir Edgar. "It is simple enough when it has been explained; but a sufficiently ingenious thing for all that, in proof of which we have the fact that it has completely puzzled us all for months; and I really believe, Saint Leger, that, but for your wonderful dream, it would have continued to puzzle you to the end of time. I congratulate you heartily upon your good fortune."

"And I;" "And I," simultaneously exclaimed Lady Emily and her sister.

"And now," continued the baronet, "what are your plans with regard to the matter? Will you still go on to Sydney, and discharge your cargo before attempting to secure your treasure, or will you make a detour, and prosecute your search for it forthwith?"

"Oh, of course I must fulfil my present obligations before I attempt to do anything toward recovering the treasure," said I. "When I have done that—when I have safely landed you all on the wharf at Sydney, and have discharged my cargo, I shall well ballast the ship and clear for the Pacific in search of a cargo of sandal-wood. I shall of course make it my first business to secure the treasure; but, in order to keep up appearances, I shall also collect what sandal-wood I can find without very much trouble, and proceed with it to China, from whence I shall take home a cargo of tea, if I can secure one."

"And how long do you expect to remain in Sydney?" inquired Sir Edgar.

"Oh, about a fortnight, or three weeks at the utmost," said I.

"Upon my word, I should very much like to go with you," remarked Sir Edgar, reflectively. "I confess I feel curious to see the end of your adventure; but if you are not likely to lie in port longer than the time you have named, I am afraid it can scarcely be managed. However, we shall see."

And with that the subject was dismissed for the moment, although it was afterwards frequently touched upon again before our arrival in Sydney.

The other affair, to which I have referred as ultimately proving to be intimately associated with my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmonds, was one in which the ship's steward became the most conspicuous figure.

I had never liked the man, from the moment that I first came into contact with him upon the occasion of the crew signing articles. He had a sly, shifty expression of eye that aroused my instant antipathy; but he held such unexceptionable testimonials that I had no excuse for refusing to engage him, apart from the manifest injustice it would have been to deny him employment simply on account of a feeling of prejudice that, for aught I could tell, might disappear upon a further acquaintance. It did not, however; on the contrary, it rather increased, for he had not been with us long ere I discovered that he had a quiet, stealthy, cat-like way of moving about that would have been irreproachable had it not happened that frequently, when writing a letter, making up my accounts, or otherwise engaged upon work of a strictly private character, I was disconcerted to suddenly discover him behind my chair—without knowing how he came, or how long he had been there—in a position and attitude that irresistibly suggested the idea that he had been peering over my shoulder. Or again, when conversing more or less confidentially with others, it was no uncommon thing to make, by the merest accident, the annoying discovery that the man had been well within earshot all the while. And it did not in the least lessen my annoyance that, on all such occasions, the fellow seemed to be exactly where he ought to be, and engaged in the performance of perfectly legitimate duties.

This, however, was the extent of his offence—if such it can be called— until we were within twenty-four hours of arriving in Sydney Harbour, when he was detected in an act that all but resulted in the destruction of the ship, while it seriously imperilled the lives of all hands.

The ship's lazarette, or storeroom, was situated—as is usually the case—underneath the cabin. But whereas it is the fashion in most ships to have a small hatch in the cabin floor by which access is gained to the lazarette, in the Esmeralda there was a much more convenient arrangement, consisting of a step-ladder leading down through a hatchway beneath the saloon staircase, whereby stores could be brought up for use without the necessity of shifting the saloon table and dragging everything through the saloon itself. The hatchway giving access to the lazarette was enclosed by a partition which formed quite a roomy little apartment, wherein the steward was wont to unpack the barrels and cases containing the cabin stores; the work being thus done in such complete seclusion that it could not possibly prove a source of annoyance to any one, however fastidious. This arrangement also enabled the steward to enter the lazarette at his own sweet will and without any one being the wiser—which constituted my sole objection to it.

We were, as I have said, within twenty-four hours' sail of our port, the time being evening, about three bells in the first watch, when one of the nursemaids came rushing on deck with a scared face and the intelligence that there was a strong smell of burning in the saloon, which, moreover, was full of smoke. I of course sprang below at once, and found it to be indeed as the maid had stated; there was a most unmistakable smell of fire, and a haze of light-blue smoke in the cabin that seemed to have made its way there from the lazarette, for the companion-way and the space between the foot of the companion-ladder and the saloon bulkhead was thick with it. Guessing at once that the fire was in the lazarette, I threw open the door leading to the hatchway, and found the latter open, with a cloud of bluish-white smoke issuing from it, through which I dimly caught the flicker of flames. To drop through the hatchway was the work of an instant, when I at once saw what was the matter. A large packing-case that had evidently been nearly full of straw was all in a blaze, and beside it, with an idiotic, drunken grin upon his face, stood the steward, unsteadily pointing with wavering finger to the open lazarette lantern, which could just be descried in the midst of the blazing mass. In his other hand the fellow held a filled but unlighted pipe, which, with a tumbler that still contained a small quantity of wine, and a half-empty bottle of the same generous stimulant, explained at a glance the whole history of the incident. The rascal had evidently gone down into the lazarette and helped himself to a bottle of wine, upon the contents of which he had become so nearly intoxicated that at length, forgetful or reckless of the extreme danger of such a proceeding where he was, he had determined to further solace himself with a smoke, and, opening the lantern in order to light his pipe at the candle, had dropped it into the packing-case and set its contents on fire. The fellow was too stupidly drunk even to raise an alarm, and in another five minutes the whole lazarette would have been in a blaze. As it happened, however, I arrived upon the scene just in the nick of time to prevent this by seizing the blazing case and dragging it and its contents bodily up on deck—at the expense of a pair of severely scorched hands—and heaving it overboard. I then went below again, and took an exhaustive look round to assure myself beyond all question that no smouldering spark had been left behind; and, having completely satisfied myself upon that point, wound up the affair by ordering the steward to be put in irons and locked up in the deck-house forward. We arrived at Sydney next day, and within half an hour of mooring the ship I paid the man his wages and turned him adrift.

The Desmond party got clear of the ship in time to dine ashore that evening; and, on the day but one following our arrival, they started upon their up-country journey, after bidding me a most cordial farewell, accompanied by the hope that they might find me still in port upon their return. I felt exceedingly sorry to part with them, and told them so; adding that I could not entertain the hope of seeing them again, on that side of the world at least, since they expected to be absent from Sydney for at least a month, by the end of which time I hoped to be some distance on my way to the treasure island. But I gave them a faithful promise to write to them on my return to England, acquainting them with the issue of my adventure, even should I find myself unable to accept the pressing invitation they gave me to visit them at their place in Devonshire.

Sydney, as everybody knows, is a fairly busy port, and can always make a goodly display of shipping; at least, that is my experience of the place, and I had been there thrice prior to the period of this story; but, knowing—as I thought I did—something about the annual amount of tonnage using the harbour, I was astounded at the vast fleet of craft of all rigs and sizes that met my gaze when I beheld the noble city for the fourth time. The anchorage seemed literally packed with them; and it required some very delicate manoeuvring on the part of our pilot to take us to our berth without running foul of something. Fortunately for us— and possibly also for some of the other craft—there was a nice working breeze blowing at the time; and, the Esmeralda happening moreover to be an exceptionally smart and handy vessel under canvas, we managed to thread our way in and out among the fleet without hurting ourselves or anybody else. The pilot observed the wondering glances I cast around me as we made our way up the harbour, and remarked, with a smile, and in a semi-confidential tone of voice—

"Curious sight, isn't it, sir?"

"Very," I agreed. "And the most curious part of it, to my mind, is the deserted look of the craft, everywhere. Most of them appear to be loaded and apparently ready for sea, yet in scarcely any of them is more than a single person to be seen; while many of them appear to have absolutely nobody at all on board."

"That's just how it is with them, sir. There's upwards of a hundred sail of vessels at anchor round about us at this present minute, without a soul aboard to look after 'em. Deserted by all hands, from the skipper to the cabin-boy, and left to take care of themselves while their crews are away making their fortunes—or trying to make them—at the new gold-fields. And those that aren't absolutely deserted are left with only the cap'n aboard to look after 'em. Your crew'll be leaving you before twenty-four hours are passed over their heads—unless they're an unusually steady lot—mark my words if they don't."

"And how long has this state of things existed?" I inquired.

"Oh, ever since the discovery of the new gold-field; and that's—let me see—why, about five months," was the reply. "See that full-rigged ship over there—painted green, with white ports—that's the Sophie Ellesmere, of Liverpool. Her crew was the first to desert; and it was only last Thursday that I heard her cap'n saying that he had been ready for sea exactly five months on that day. He has written home to his owners to send him out a crew, and he's expecting 'em by the next steamer; the arrangement being that they're to go straight aboard from the steamer, and up anchor and away. But, bless you, sir, they'll never do it; they'll insist upon having a fling ashore, for a few days, after their trip out here; and so sure as they get leave to do that, they'll be off, like all the rest."

"And are there no men to be obtained here in place of the deserters?" I asked.

"Lord bless your soul, no, sir! Why, it's a difficult matter to muster hands enough even to unload or load a ship, with labourer's wages up to a pound a day; and the men who are willing to work even at that figure are either the few long-headed ones who prefer a moderate certainty to the chance of ill luck at the gold-fields, or such poor delicate chaps as can't stand the hardships of camp life. But, as to sailors, bless you, sir, there ain't one to be had for love or money. Even those who deserted from the Sophie Ellesmere haven't been up there long enough yet to get tired of the life and to want a change."

"Then I suppose this new gold-field is proving pretty rich?" I hazarded.

"Well, if you are to believe all that the newspapers say about it, there must be gold to be had for the trouble of picking it up, almost," was the reply. "And it is certain that at least one man—a sailor he was, too—managed to scrape together ten thousand pounds' worth of gold in the three months. He and three of his mates worked a claim together, and struck it downright rich when they got down to the gravel; one nugget alone that they brought up weighed fourteen hundred and ninety-seven ounces; and though that was the biggest of the lot, it was only one of many big ones. Of course, a 'find' like that goes the rounds of the newspapers, and is made much of and talked about to that degree that people simply go mad with the gold-fever, and rush off to the fields, absolutely certain that they, too, will be equally lucky."

This was serious news indeed; for, as I was then situated, I could ill afford to have the ship lying idle a single day, to say nothing of such a length of time as five or six months. Should I eventually succeed in recovering the treasure, of course even a year or more of enforced idleness would matter nothing; but it was still quite an open question with me whether I should ever see that treasure or not. I had not a shadow of doubt as to the bona fides of the cryptogram. I felt certain that when that document was penned, the treasure was reposing peacefully in the hiding-place described therein; but how was I to know that it lay there still? The writer of the document may not have been the only person acquainted with the secret of the hiding-place; and, in such a case, the probabilities were in favour of the treasure having been unearthed years before either I or my father opened our eyes upon this world. Or it might even have been stumbled upon accidentally. In short, the prospect of its falling into my hands appeared so uncertain, even now that I had gained the clue to its place of concealment, that I felt it would be impossible for me to regard myself or to act otherwise than as a poor man until I should actually find the treasure in my possession. And then, too, I was naturally anxious and eager to settle the question as to whether the treasure still remained hidden or not. If it did, well and good; if not—if it was not to be found on the spot indicated in the cryptogram, it certainly would not be found at all; and all that would then remain for me to do would be to dismiss the matter from my mind, as I would a feverish dream, and devote myself, heart and soul, to my profession.

The problem which now presented itself to my mind was, how to induce my crew to remain with me? For inducement it would certainly have to be; I could scarcely have them locked up, or put them in irons during our stay in Sydney in order to insure myself against their desertion! I thought the matter over very carefully, both on that first evening of our arrival in Sydney Harbour, and during the subsequent day, after a visit to my consignees had assured me that the pilot's story in nowise exaggerated the astounding state of things then prevailing in the port, and at length came to the conclusion that I could do nothing. If they chose to remain, well and good; if they elected to go, I had no power to prevent them.

To my astonishment and gratification, however, they took their leave time after time, and always punctually turned up on board again when it had expired; until, when we had been in the harbour nearly a month, and our cargo was almost out, I began to hope that the fellows really meant to stay by me. Then, getting leave to spend Sunday ashore, as usual, every mother's son of them—save the mate and Joe Martin—left me. I, of course, at once communicated with the police authorities, acquainting them with the fact of the desertion; and I also offered a substantial reward for the recovery of the men. But it was of no avail; the rascals had gone clean off; and there I found myself, in the same plight as many another shipmaster, locked up in Sydney Harbour for an indefinite period, with no hope whatever of getting away so long as the rush to the gold-fields lasted.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE NEW CREW.

I had been in this unpleasant plight about three weeks, during which the remainder of the cargo had been discharged, the ship ballasted down to her very best sailing trim, and everything made ready for my trip to the Pacific, when one day, as I was wandering aimlessly about the streets, I encountered Sir Edgar and Lady Desmond, who—after a much longer sojourn up-country than they had intended—had returned to Sydney, and were beginning to think seriously of finding their way back to England. They were palpably and unfeignedly delighted to see me again, although they of course sympathised with me in my misfortune, and insisted upon my dining with them that evening, and afterwards accompanying them to the theatre. I suppose they saw that I needed a little cheering up; and I got it, too; for they were more than kind—their genial frankness of behaviour to me was more that of a brother and sister than of mere acquaintances, or even of the usual run of friends; and when I left them next morning after breakfast—for they insisted on my acceptance of their hospitality for the night—I felt more cheerful than I had done since the desertion of my crew. As I shook hands with Sir Edgar on the hotel steps, he said—

"Now, Saint Leger, we are in no hurry to start for a month or two, you know; and we are all quite as eager as ever we were to see the end of this adventure of yours; so if you should succeed in scraping together a crew within, say, the next two months, you may reckon upon us as passengers again—that is, if you would care to have us."

"You are more than kind, Sir Edgar," said I, "and I should be delighted to have you; but you appear to have forgotten that my plans include another visit to China before I point the barque's nose for home, even should I succeed in securing the treasure."

"That does not matter a bit, my dear fellow," he laughed. "As I have already told you, we are in no hurry whatever; and, to tell you the truth, Lady Emily seems to enjoy so much better health when at sea than she does when on shore, that I should welcome any excuse plausible enough to keep her on shipboard for two or three months longer. So, if you should succeed in picking up a crew, let me know at once."

It really seemed as though the reappearance of the Desmonds upon the scene had brought good fortune to me; for when I reached the ship and went on board, Forbes met me at the gangway with quite an unwonted expression of delight upon his face, and said—

"I am glad you have come on board so early, sir; for I have actually had a gang of eleven men alongside, who say they are looking for berths."

"Eleven men! looking for berths!" I ejaculated, scarcely crediting my ears. "Where are they?"

"They went off up-town again, unfortunately, when I told them you were not on board," replied Forbes. "But I have the address of the boarding-house at which they are staying, and I told them I would let them know when you could see them."

"My dear fellow," I exclaimed, "be off at once, and say that I shall be on board for the remainder of the day, and can see them at any time. Or, stay—perhaps I had better look in upon them myself; I can manage to drop in upon them in a casual sort of way, that will have less appearance of eagerness and anxiety than would sending especially for them. What did they look like?"

"Well," admitted Forbes, "they looked as rowdy a set of ruffians as I ever wish to set eyes on; but their manners and mode of speaking were those of fairly decent, respectable men. They said that they had been at the gold-fields for the last seven months, and had scarcely made enough to keep themselves; they were consequently tired of their shore life, and had determined to go to sea again if they could meet with a ship and officers to their liking. They were mightily taken with the barque—as of course any man who knew a ship from a washing-tub would be—swore she was the sweetest-looking craft in the harbour; and, when I mentioned your name, said they had heard of you and wouldn't wish to go to sea under a better man. Altogether, if they are only in earnest as to their desire to go to sea again, I do not think you should find much difficulty in securing them, sir."

"Give me their address," said I, "and I will be off after them at once. This is not a time for fencing and feigning indifference; the fellows know, as well as you or I do, what a haul they will prove to the man who is lucky enough to secure them, so I will not run any risk of losing them by pretending otherwise. If I can persuade them to ship, I will sail to-morrow, short-handed though we should be. I can take the starboard watch myself; and, for the rest, we shall just have to keep an extra sharp eye upon the barometer and the weather, and be careful to snug down if need be in good time, until we again reach China, when we shall probably be able to get another man or two." So saying, I took the address from Forbes, and forthwith started in search of the men. I found them at length, after a somewhat tedious quest, in a most disreputable-looking boarding-house, situate in the most disreputable part of the town. And I am bound to admit that my first impression of the men was that their appearance was in perfect accord with their surroundings. They most undoubtedly were, as Forbes had said, as rowdy-looking a set of ruffians as one would care to meet. Tough, sinewy desperadoes, swarthy as mulattoes by long exposure to the fierce southern sun, with long, dense, tangled thatches of hair mingling with a thick, neglected growth of beard and whisker that permitted scarcely a feature, save the nose and eyes, to be seen, clad in the remains of the inevitable flannel shirt, cord trousers, and knee-boots, with belts about their waists, in which each man carried his revolver and a formidable bowie-knife; the whole topped off with a soft, broad-brimmed, battered felt hat dashed on to the head in a fashion eloquently suggestive of the utmost extreme of recklessness,—I think I never saw a party of men who, under ordinary circumstances, I would have been less willing to ship as a crew than these. Yet, when I spoke to them, they answered me respectfully, and there was scarcely more than the merest tinge of that defiant independence of manner that their appearance had prepared me to expect. They told me, as they had told Forbes, that they had been working for something like seven months at the gold-fields, and had met with so little success that they were now almost penniless, a result which they attributed to their lack of experience as miners. One of the party remarked grimly that the life of a miner was even worse than that of a sailor; inasmuch as that, with an equal amount of exposure and harder work, it was no unusual thing for them to be reduced to starvation rations. Seven months' experience of this kind, they said, had satisfied them that they were never intended for gold-miners; and they had accordingly left the fields in a body, and tramped to Sydney, determined to revert to their original occupation of seamen, and agreeing to ship together for home in the first craft that took their fancy.