pins, sir, not belaying pins,--I'd have you
put ashore, with orders not to show your dirty face again till you had
found Mr Raystoke."

Dirty Dick passed his hand over his face carefully, and then looked at
the palm to see if any of the swarthy tan had come off.

"Do you hear me, sir?" cried the lieutenant.

"Yes, sir," said the man humbly. "Shall I go at once sir?"

"No. Wait. Keep a sharp look-out on the cliff to see if Mr Raystoke
is making signals for a boat. I daresay he has been there all the time,
only you took up my attention with your chatter."

He swung round, walked aft and began sweeping the shore again with his
glass, while the master and Dick exchanged glances which meant a great
deal.

"He is in a wax," said Dick to himself, as he walked to the side, and
stood shading his eyes with his hands, looking carefully for the signals
which did not come.

Two hours more passed away, during which it was a dead calm, and the sun
beat down so hotly that the seams began to send out little black beads
of pitch, and drops formed under some of the ropes ready to come off on
the first hand which touched them.

At last the little lieutenant could bear the anxiety no longer.

"Pipe away the men to that boat there," he said; and as the crew sprang
in. "Now, Mr Gurr," he said, "I'm only going to say one thing to you
in the way of instructions."

"Yes, sir."

"Will you have the goodness to wait till I have done speaking, Mr Gurr,
and not compel me to say all I wish over again?"

"Beg pardon, sir," said the master deprecatingly.

"I say, sir, I have only one order to give you. Get ashore as soon as
you can, and find and bring back Mr Raystoke."

"Yes, sir," cried the master, and he walked over the side, glad to get
into the boat and push off, muttering the while, "and I always thought
him such a quiet, amiable little chap. He's a Tartar; that's what he
is. Making all this fuss about a boy who, as like as not, is having a
game with us. Don't see me getting out o' temper with everybody, and
spitting and swearing like a mad Tom-cat. Hang the boy! He's on'y a
middy.--Now, my lads,--now, my lads, put your backs into it, will you?"

The boat was already surging through the water faster than it had ever
gone before, but the men bent lower and the longer, and the blades of
the oars made the water flash and foam as they dipped and rose with the
greatest of regularity.

For the lieutenant's anxiety about th