for the moment Ned found himself
unable to recognise it as an actual fact. Over and over again he stood
up and shook himself to ascertain whether or not he was really awake, or
whether his disjointed cogitations and the cause of them were only parts
of an ugly dream. At length, however, his mind grew clearer, the
disastrous reality of the whole business finally asserted itself, and he
then began to cast blindly about him for the means of rectification.
But, alas, the longer he thought about it, the more hopeless did the
situation appear. He began to see that Williams had only spoken the
simple truth when he asserted that the mutiny was the result of long
premeditation. They had laid their plans well, the scoundrels! and had
carried them out with such consummate artifice and attention to detail,
that as Ned turned over in his mind scheme after scheme for the recovery
of the ship, it was only to realise that each had been anticipated and
provided against. At length, baffled and in despair, he gave up,
temporarily, all hope of effecting a recapture, and allowed his thoughts
to turn in another direction. "What was to become of the passengers?"
True, Williams had guaranteed for them perfect immunity from
molestation, the price of this privilege being on Ned's part true and
faithful service as navigator of the ship for the mutineers, but a time
was to come when the passengers would be landed on some out-of-the-way
spot, doubtless, and exposed to countless perils from hunger, thirst,
exposure, and worse than all, perhaps the nameless horrors of a
captivity among savages! And yet Ned felt that they would be in even
greater peril so long as they remained on board the _Flying Cloud_. The
mutineers seemed peaceably disposed for the moment certainly, but how
long would that state of things continue after they had gained access to
the liquor on board? Ned shuddered as his excited imagination pictured
the scene of bloodshed which might be enacted within the next twenty-
four hours, and he finally began to realise that even falling into the
hands of a tribe of savages might not prove to be the very worst evil
possible for those poor weak women and children. His next thought was
that they must be got out of the ship with all possible expedition. Ha!
but that involved the necessity for saying "good-bye"--for a parting!
Well; what of that? He had said "good-bye" before now to plenty of
pleasant people, both on the Melbourne qua