r, to follow
him, and hastily made his way into the saloon.

"Bring me the captain's charts," he said, as soon as Ned joined him.
The charts were produced; and after carefully looking them over Williams
selected a track-chart of the world, which he carefully spread out on
the table.

"Now, show me whereabouts we are," he said.

Ned indicated the position of the ship by making a pencil dot on the
paper, and a long period of anxious study on Williams' part followed.

"What is the course to the Straits of Sunda?" was the next question.

Ned told him; whereupon Williams left the saloon, and a moment later was
heard altering the course of the ship in accordance with Ned's
information. He then returned to the saloon, and unrolled a chart of
the North Pacific, which he pored anxiously over for fully a quarter of
an hour, finally huddling the charts all together in a heap, with the
remark, "That will do for the present;" which Ned construed into a token
of dismissal, and accordingly left the cabin.

Day followed day with little or no variety, the weather continuing fine
all the time, and at length the _Flying Cloud_ arrived within a few
days' sail of the Straits of Sunda. Ned now spent on deck every moment
he could possibly spare from sleep, as he was not without hopes that
hereabout a man-of-war might be fallen in with; and he was resolved
that, in such a case, it should go hard but he would make some effort to
communicate to her the state of affairs on board.

And, as a matter of fact, they actually did sight a frigate on the day
upon which they entered the straits. But Williams was not to be caught
napping; he too had evidently contemplated some such possibility, and
had taken such precautions as not only rendered it impossible for anyone
to make a private signal, but had also arranged such answers to the
signals usually made on such occasions that the frigate was completely
hoodwinked, and passed on her way without attempting to send a boat
alongside.

This was a terrible disappointment, not only to Ned but also to Gaunt
and the doctor, each of them having confidently reckoned upon a certain
deliverance in the event of a man-of-war being fallen in with.

They now recognised that in Williams, whether educated or not, they had
a man of no ordinary acuteness to deal with; they realised that, though
apparently free as air to act as they pleased, an unceasing watch was
being kept upon them, and they felt that hencef