section of
them which had the steamer's name painted on the side. The name painted
on the two smashed boats had been ripped from their sterns, and
everything that would float was locked securely in cabins or made fast.

Captain Riggs fashioned a sail out of a tarpaulin, and stepped a mast
well forward, and with other things we took signal-pennants and a British
ensign, and from the foremast of the _Kut Sang_ he flew a signal of
distress and a message in the international code about pirates or some
such thing, so that, in case Thirkle should get away in the boat and be
picked up, he would have a great deal of difficulty in explaining about
himself if the same vessel should sight our coloured flags.

"Take a look and see that the boy ain't busy up there at a nap," said
Riggs, and I mounted to the bridge, keeping well covered and to the
seaward side of the chart-house. Rajah was wide awake, lying just inside
the coaming of the chart-room door, chewing contentedly at his _betel_,
and holding the spy-glass over the brass doorplate directed toward
the island. He grinned at me as I entered through the door on the port
side.

I took the glass and searched the horizon of the sea, but there was no
sign of a sail or a smear of smoke; neither could I find any trace of the
pirates on the island, which had a pile of volcanic rock rising out of
its northern end. I sought for some sign of human habitation on the
brown, bare hills of Luzon, baking in the sun, but that part of the coast
was a wilderness, desolate and forbidding.

The _Kut Sang_ was lying secure as if in a dock, sprawled out on the
coral floor of the sea like some dead thing, her stern completely under
water, and her port rail, almost to the break of the forecastle head, at
the crests of the gentle swells. The island gave us a lee from the strong
current, but at the first sign of heavy weather she would break up.

A school of small sharks scouted around her, and one big fellow, with his
fin out of water like a trysail, loafed at a distance, as if sure of his
prey. The combers purred on the shining stretches of beach, and the
ripples of the current whispered at the side of the vessel, and in the
peace that surrounded us Riggs's hammer made a terrific clatter.

"Keep a sharp lookout, Mr. Trenholm," he called up to me. "I've got a job
for'ard which must be attended to now, and I'll call for you in a bit of
a while."

He went down the forecastle ladder with his arms f