er found himself confronted with a question which he was
unable to satisfactorily answer.

Whilst Gaunt was still revolving this difficult matter in his mind the
raft arrived at her usual berth at Fay Island, and her cargo was as
rapidly as possible discharged; after which she sailed at once for the
western settlement. Here the unexpected appearance of Captain Blyth and
Bob Manners was greeted with every manifestation of surprise and
delight; and the former had, as a matter of course, to recount to his
interested friends the whole story of his sojourn upon, and escape from
the island upon which the pair had been landed. The ladies were
naturally most anxious to learn the latest news concerning Miss
Stanhope; and the wary skipper, whilst telling them what little he knew
about her, did his best to allay their fears with regard to that young
lady, carefully concealing his own somewhat gloomy anticipations as to
her future. And so successfully did he manage this business that Mrs
Henderson's heart was considerably lightened of the load which had for
so long a time been secretly pressing upon it.

As soon as it could be done without exciting suspicion in the minds of
the ladies, Gaunt contrived upon one pretext or another to draw away all
the male members of the party, to whom forthwith he disclosed the
alarming intelligence which Captain Blyth had brought to the island with
him; pointing out to them the new danger which thus threatened the very
existence of them all, and earnestly begging them to give the matter
their most serious consideration. Suggestions were, of course, at once
offered in plenty, but they all possessed one very serious drawback;
they lacked practicability. The least unpromising of them all was that
of Captain Blyth, who boldly advocated the abandonment of the scheme for
building a vessel; and proposed that, instead of incurring the delay and
risk involved in the carrying out of such a plan, the raft should first
be strengthened as much as possible, and that he, Manners, and Nicholls
should then sail in her to Singapore, from whence it would be easy to
dispatch a rescue vessel to the island to take off the rest of the
party.

But when this proposal came to be canvassed more in detail, it was found
that there were several very grave objections to it, the most grave of
them all lying in the fact that, according to their calculations, the
stormy season must now be close at hand; and, strengthen the r