the
cabin, the mutineers assisting with the rest, for all felt there was
no time to lose. There was mistrust at first, each party seeming to be
suspicious of the other, but it soon wore off, and any one looking
upon them could not have been made to believe they were deadly
enemies.

When the transfer was completed, it was evident that the current was
close upon its turn, and unless they should leave the island soon,
they would be compelled to wait perhaps twelve or twenty-four hours
longer.

Since the sea was very calm, Hyde Brazzier proposed that the schooner
should be taken outside and anchored directly over the pearl-oyster
bed, so that sail could be hoisted as soon as they were ready. There
was a slight risk in the action, but it was done, and after some
careful maneuvering the _Coral_ was secured in position.

It looked very magnanimous and somewhat stupid for Abe Storms to
volunteer to go down in his coat of armor and scoop the oysters into a
huge basket, for the very parties who had tried so hard to drown him
when similarly engaged the day before. Nothing, it would seem, could
be more absurd, and yet the reader is requested to suspend judgment
until he shall have read the following chapter.

All this was done, and in the course of the succeeding two hours fully
three-fourths of the oysters scattered over that particular bed were
dumped upon the deck of the _Coral_, and Abe Storms, pretty well
exhausted, was pulled to the surface. The captain and mate, with the
armor, rowed themselves the short distance ashore in the small boat.
The _Coral_ hoisted sail, and, heading out to sea, rapidly sped away
over the Pacific.

And all this time the three mutineers felicitated themselves upon the
manner in which they had gotten the best of the bargain. And yet,
never in all their lives had they been so completely outwitted as they
were by Abe Storms and Captain Jack Bergen, as we shall now proceed to
show.

CHAPTER XX

HOW DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

The three mutineers on board the schooner Coral had sailed away and
disappeared from view on the face of the vast Pacific, and the captain
and mate were left with little Inez alone upon a small, lonely member
of the Paumotu Group, in the distant South Seas.

Inez was too young to realize the gravity of the situation, and she
ran hither and thither, delighted with her new home, though she found
the cabin too warm inside to be comfortable, and she made frequent
draug