ou see, sir," said Adams, with a grave look, while hospitably
entertaining his visitor that afternoon, "we are increasing at a great
rate, and although they may perhaps take me home and swing me up to the
yard-arm, I think it better to run the risk o' that than to leave all
these poor young things here unprotected. Why, just think what might
happen if one o' them traders which are little better than pirates were
to come an' find us here."

He looked at the Captain earnestly.

"Now, if we were under the protection o' the British flag--only just
recognised, as it were,--that would go a long way to help us, and
prevent mischief."

At this point the importunities of some of the young people to hear
about the outside world prevailed, and Folger began, as Jack Brace had
done the day before, to tell them some of the most stirring events in
the history of his own land.

But he soon found out that the mental capacity of the Pitcairners was
like a bottomless pit. However much they got, they wanted more.
Anecdote after anecdote, story after story, fact after fact, was thrown
into the gulf, and still the cry was, "More! more!"

At last he tore himself away.

"Good-bye, and God bless you all," he said, while stepping into the
canoe which was to carry him off. "I won't forget my promise."

"And tell 'em to send us story-books," shouted Daniel McCoy, as the
canoe rose on the back of the breakers.

The Captain waved his hand. Most of the women and children wiped their
eyes, and then they all ran to the heights to watch the _Topaz_ as she
sailed away. They watched her till she vanished over that mysterious
horizon which seemed to the Pitcairners the utmost boundary of the
world, and some of them continued to gaze until the stars came out, and
the gulls retired to bed, and the soft black mantle of night descended
like a blessing of tranquillity on land and sea.

Before bidding the _Topaz_ farewell, we may remark that Captain Folger
faithfully fulfilled his promise. He wrote a letter to England giving a
full account of his discovery of the retreat of the mutineers, which
aroused much interest all over the land; but at that time the stirring
events of warfare filled the minds of men in Europe so exclusively, that
the lonely island and its inhabitants were soon forgotten--at least no
action was taken by the Government--and six years elapsed before another
vessel sailed out of the great world into the circle of vision around