me?"

"Yes, of course I do," exclaimed Williams. "I don't want to hurt her if
she'll only keep quiet. Here, Ned, you take charge of her. She'll be
quieter with you than with me, perhaps; and see if you can persuade her
that she will be better off here than overboard among the sharks. As to
keeping faith with you, my hearty, why, I've done the best I could.
Those friends of yours, that you seem to have taken such a tremendous
fancy to, have been treated just as well since we took the ship as they
were before. We've lost nearly three weeks cruising about trying to
find a good place on which to land them--and a perfect paradise of a
spot we've found for them at last; nobody could wish for a better--and,
now that they are turned adrift, I've landed them with an outfit
complete enough for them to start a regular colony. What more would you
have! Haven't I yet done enough to satisfy you?"

"No, certainly not," answered Ned, inwardly grieving now that he had not
ventured to add to the scanty "outfit" several other articles which he
had felt would have been of the utmost value to the marooned party, but
which he had feared to include lest the whole should have been refused
them. "No; this young lady was one of the party, and was included in my
stipulations. Yet you have detained her on board here, a prisoner."

"Ah, well! the less said about that, perhaps, the better," remarked
Williams. "I quite intended to have landed her with the rest of them;
but that island looming up ahead this morning--when you told us only
last night that we had a clear sea ahead of us--looked so queer that we
held a consultation, and came to the conclusion that, for our own
safety's sake, we ought to keep somebody aboard here to act as a sort of
hostage to secure us against treachery on your part; and, as we didn't
think it would be right to separate husband and wife, or parents and
children, why, you see, there was only this young lady left for us.
And, whilst we are talking upon this subject, shipmates," he continued,
turning to the rest of the crew, whose curiosity had brought them about
the little party, "let me say, here and now, that Bill Rogers, Bob
Martin, and myself agreed this morning that she must be kept among us
for the safety of the ship and all hands. You all know--for no secret
has been made of it--that Ned, there, has been kept with us, not of his
own free-will, but because we required somebody to navigate the ship for
us.