dsbery upon a charge of piracy,
and bring them to Sydney for trial. The business of the ship, and the
fact that Gurney, Saunders, Grace Hartley, and I would be required as
witnesses at the trial, detained us all at Sydney until the return of
the corvette from the island, some two months later.

The news which she brought back sent a thrill of horror throughout the
colony. It was to the effect that upon her arrival at the spot, the
latitude and longitude of which I had given, a small islet had been
discovered which, upon examination, proved to be the crater of a volcano
that had evidently been very recently in a state of violent activity;
but no traces of life were to be found upon it, nor had the islet any
resemblance to the extensive and beautiful island which we had
described. The weather, however, proving favourable, the captain of the
corvette had anchored his ship for several days close to the islet, and
had caused an extensive series of soundings to be taken all round it,
which, upon being plotted to a large scale, were of such a character as
to leave no doubt that the islet was indeed the summit of the peak of
Wilde's island, and that the latter had most probably been engulfed,
with its inhabitants, by the same cataclysm that had imprisoned the
_Mercury_ among the meshes of the pearl reef! Our escape, therefore,
from the common destruction that had overtaken the rest had been an
exceedingly narrow one, the margin of safety amounting, in fact, to less
than three days; for there can be no question that, had the _Mercury_
been at her moorings in the Basin, or even within a few miles of the
island, when the catastrophe occurred, she could never have survived it.

The consignees of the _Mercury's_ original cargo--the names and
addresses of whom were mentioned in the ship's manifest, found by me,
with the rest of the ship's papers, in the captain's desk--were of
course only too glad to accept the cargo of sandalwood brought from the
island, in lieu of the much less valuable merchandise originally
consigned to them, and they at once chartered the ship to carry the wood
to Canton, one of the partners--a Mr Henderson--going with it in the
capacity of supercargo to dispose of it, upon arrival. There was not
much difficulty in engaging another master, officers, and crew for the
ship; and I subsequently learned that she arrived safely, that the cargo
was speedily disposed of, tea purchased with the proceeds, and the shi