eldrum. "The boat's coming on a
bit quicker now. It has got out of the set of the tide and has the wind
well abeam, just the thing for that lugsail she carries."

"Sure and she's a smart sailer, sorr," observed Mr McCarthy after a few
minutes' interval, during which time the longboat, which had been
heading up the coast, hauled her wind and was steered towards the
entrance of the little creek at the top of the bay, close by where the
flagstaff was erected and the Penguin Castle people were on the look-
out.

As she came nearer, however, it could be seen that Mr McCarthy's
imagination had been quicker than his eyesight, for there was no one
looking out over the gunwale--least of all Bill Moody, whose tall
herculean form and peculiar visage would have been easily recognisable
even at some distance off.

Indeed, there seemed to be very few persons in the boat at all, only two
being observed in the stern-sheets, one of whom was steering with an
oar, while a third was sitting on one of the forward thwarts attending
to the sheet of the lugsail, slacking it out as the wind came aft
occasionally, and hauling it in taut again when the sail jibed on the
boat's head falling off a point or two through the alteration of her
course now and again.

The castaways were all in a state of the greatest expectation and
surmise, as the longboat gradually grew more visible and the small
number of its occupants became noticeable; for, as she rounded the point
of the ridge, those on the beach could now observe her as well as Mr
Meldrum and the first-mate, who were by the side of the look-out man at
the signal station on the higher ground and were the only ones able at
first to see the boat.

"They look as if they'd had hard times," said Ben Boltrope, who was one
of those who could now have a look at the boat, "and some of them seem
to have lost the number of their mess."

"And a durned good job, too!" exclaimed Mr Lathrope; "the mean skunks,
to scoot away and leave a lot of wemmen and children to drown, as they
thought. They've well arned any troubles they've come by, I guess!"

"Poor creatures!" said Kate, who was standing near the American, with
Frank, of course, the inseparable, by her side; "please don't say that!
If all of us only just got what we deserved, we should have a sorry
reckoning!"

"Very proper, and just what I think," observed Mrs

Major Negus in a sort of condescending and approving way. "I do not
consider it r