nd dart a grateful glance in
the English lad's direction.

The journey downwards seemed endless, and proved to be far longer than
any one there anticipated. But just as the longest and darkest watch
nights come to their end, so it was here, when, skimming along under
sail, taking long reaches, for the wind was abeam, all at once Joe
Cross, who was the first to see, sang out a loud and hearty--

"Ship ahoy!"

"Hah!" cried Morny. "Do you see the brig?"

"No, sir," replied the man, as Morny, the doctor and Rodd shaded their
eyes and gazed down-stream; "I can't make out the brig."

"Oh, you don't half look," cried Rodd. "There's the Spanish schooner,
and ours, and just beyond them, half hidden by the trees and land, there
are the tops of the masts of the brig. Hurrah, Morny! She's all right,
afloat, and--Here, what are you looking that way for?"

"Because I can't see her," said the French lad despairingly. "There is
something wrong."

"Why, my dear old chap," cried Rodd, "you can't see well, because of the
trees, but as we get farther out, there she lies, to the left, with her
two masts as plain as plain."

"I can see those two masts you mean," said Morny sternly, "but they are
low-down raking masts; the _Dagobert's_ are much higher, and stand up
stiffer than those. Do you forget she's square-rigged? Why, that's a
schooner."

"So it is," cried Rodd. "I was deceived by the two yards on her
foremast. But look here, it can't be another schooner. Captain Chubb
may have been altering her rig when he got her upright again. Why, of
course! It must be so. There can't be three schooners there. They
must have had some accident to the brig's mainmast when they raised her
again. Broke her topgallant, perhaps, and rigged her fore and aft."

"Not they, Mr Rodd, sir. Our old man would have cut a spar somewhere
from the forest and rigged her square, if it was only a jury-mast.
'Sides, they'd got spare spars on board, same as we. That's another
schooner. You can see her clearer now--a long low one, with masts that
rake more than the Spanish skipper's vessel. Strikes me as we shall
find that for some reason or another they haven't got the brig afloat."

"Another schooner, Joe?" cried Morny passionately. "The brig not
finished? For some reason or another! What reason? What does it all
mean?"

"Be calm, my lad; be calm," cried the doctor. "In a very little while
we shall know the worst, or the best. Min