stir up his people in the stoke-holds. But, in
spite of all that we could do, the craft astern steadily crept up to us
until she was hull up; and then, notwithstanding the fact that she was
differently painted, and was different in one or two minor respects as
to rig, from the craft that had been so friendly with us at Melbourne, I
couldn't help suspecting that she was the same. And when I began to ask
myself why--if she really _was_ the same craft--she had turned up in my
wake instead of pursuing her voyage to the spot to which she was bound,
I at once thought of the gold in my strong--room; and, although I
couldn't help acknowledging to myself that my suspicion was ridiculous,
the idea seized hold of me that she had turned pirate, and was after
that gold. Mumford, my chief officer, laughed in my face when I
whispered this notion into his ear; but he changed his tune when they
opened fire upon us, I can tell you. Well--but there, you know the rest
of the yarn just as well as I can tell it you, for by that time you must
have been heaving up over the horizon. But there was not an eye aboard
of us that saw you until the other fellow opened fire on you; and then
we couldn't see very much except your ensign. But that was enough for
me; for, to tell you the truth, I thought you were a British man-o'-war
of some sort, though what, I couldn't, for the life of me, tell; for I
could see neither masts nor funnels. And now, gentlemen, I want to ask
you to be kind enough, before you leave us, to sign--as witnesses to its
truth--the entry that I shall be obliged to make in my official log; for
the story is such a confoundedly queer one that, unless it is well
vouched for by independent persons, I very much doubt whether my owners,
or anybody else, for that matter, will believe it."

Sir Reginald, of course, readily undertook to do this; and while the
skipper was drafting and making the entry the visitors chatted with the
passengers, who insisted upon keeping them for afternoon tea. The
visit, therefore, did not end until nearly six o'clock that evening, at
which hour the two ships parted company with mutual threefold dips of
their ensigns; and the _Flying Fish_ was once more brought round with
her head to the eastward.

Four days later, the ship being then within some three hundred miles of
the western end of the Straits of Sunda, the weather being stark calm,
with an absolutely cloudless sky, the craft at the time going abo