them."

Saying this, Ben drew up the fish he had hooked,--a fine large one,--
retreated along the reef over the rocks, cut a branch, and ran along the
beach as fast as his legs could carry him towards Cross Point. He got
there before the canoe, for the wind was light. He could see a number
of people on it as it drew nearer. Were they savages? They were all
clothed. Yes, and some of them were dressed as English sailors. There
was a glitter of gold-lace on the coat of one of them. In the bow stood
a young sailor lad. Gradually the faces began to grow distinct. How
his heart leaped with joy! There were Tom Martin and Mr Manners, and
several of the prize crew he had long thought in their ocean graves, and
there were also a good number of the natives, busy in lowering the huge
mat-sail of the canoe. They were the very men who had been on board the
schooner.

Ben was at first almost beside himself with delight. He waved his hands
and shouted wildly; then he ran down and showed them the best place for
bringing the canoe to shore. The natives cried out to him, but neither
Tom Martin nor any of the English seamen seemed to know him. "I wonder
what that little savage wants," he heard Tom say to one of the men. "He
looks to me as if he was out of his senses."

"No, I am not, Tom Martin, I can assure you," cried Ben, running up to
him and putting out his hand; "only very, very glad to see you again,
and to find that you are all alive."

"Well, indeed, I am also glad to find you were not drowned, Ben,"
answered Tom, wringing his shipmate's hand till it seemed as if he would
wring it off. "I felt certain that you were drowned, and was very sorry
for you, that I was!"

"He speaks truth, Ben," observed Jem Stokes, a seaman who had always
stood Tom's friend. "The lad took so ill when he thought that you were
lost, that we thought he would have slipped his cable altogether; but
Mr Manners spoke to him, as he did to all of us, and told him that if
you had left this world you had gone to a better."

Jem's remarks were cut short by Mr Manners, who had now come on shore.
Ben was not aware, till he observed the surprised look with which his
officer regarded him, of the odd figure he cut. He then recollected
that he wore a suit of his own home-made clothes: a hat of leaves, in
shape between an extinguisher and an umbrella; a cape of mulberry-tree
cloth, and a kilt of the same, reaching down to his knees. With shoes
he