none of us could catch them."

"Well, go on to tell the story in your own way," said Mr Meldrum.

Their hunger got so great, the man proceeded to say, that they hunted
about for stray ham-bones, and even gnawed the soles of their boots; and
at last Bill Moody said they would have to cast lots and sacrifice one
of their number for the good of the rest.

"Oh, the dhirty cannibal!" interposed Mr McCarthy. "He'd be quite
capable of that; bad cess to the baste!"

There were now only ten of them left, with himself, continued Llewellyn,
and he could see that Moody wanted him to be killed, it being all a
pretence about casting lots. Some of the men saw through the plot, too,
as well as he did and took his part. It was then that a fight came
about, and in it he got that slash across his face which they had
noticed.

Moody's own particular adherents amongst the party were only four in
number; but they had all got pistols, which the others did not possess;
and Llewellyn's party would probably have got the worst of it had not an
awful thing happened.

Just at the moment the fight began, the smoking mountain blew up!

"An eruption of the volcano," said Mr Meldrum.

The steward did not know anything about that. He explained that, while
they were in the midst of the struggle, a lot of fire and stones came
down upon them, and Moody and some of the other mutineers were crushed
to death outright. The survivors, with himself, then managed to push
down the longboat into the sea again, and made off from the terrible
place--coasting back along the coast in the hope of coming across one of
the settlements of the whaling vessels, which some of them had heard
frequented the island.

When they were suffering the last extremities of hunger and thirst--the
latter being a fresh privation, for they had had plenty of water to
drink on the volcano beach, however much they had wanted food--they saw
the flag of the "Penguin Castle" settlers, and made towards it as well
as they were able.

"And, thank God, I'm here with you all!" concluded the steward when he
had brought his narrative to this point. "I have been saved from a
horrible death."

"Arrah, sure, all's well that inds will!" said Mr McCarthy; "but I'm
glad you weren't a desarter, as I thought you were; and I'm roight glad,
too, that that thafe of a Moody has mit with his desarts at last!"

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.

It was a fortunate circumsta