t.

To climb to this point cost him twenty minutes of precious time,
although he did the whole distance at a run; but when he got there he
felt that the time had been well spent. For there, some ten miles away,
with the afternoon sun shining brightly upon her sail, lay the fugitive
canoe, scudding away on a due westerly course, with the wind over her
port quarter. He cast a hurried glance over that part of the ocean
where he believed the second canoe ought to be, and at length thought he
caught sight of her, but could not be certain, as the light of the sun
lay strong upon the sea in that direction. But when at length he got
into the field of his telescope the image of what he had seen, he found
that it was some object, about the size of the smaller canoe, certainly,
but floating awash. If therefore it was indeed the canoe that he had
already pursued, she had either capsized or been swamped, and there was
an end of her and her crew. He now carefully took the bearing of the
big canoe, and, this done, at once set out on his journey back to the
camp and beach.

The return journey was accomplished in about a quarter of an hour, for
it was all downhill. Then, having reached the camp, Leslie hunted up
one or two further articles that he anticipated might be useful, and,
rushing down to the catamaran, got under way and headed her for the
channel. The breeze had by this time freshened up somewhat, and the
craft heeled over under the pressure of her enormous mainsail until her
lee pontoon was buried to its gunwale, while the weather-shrouds were
strained as taut as harp-strings; but Dick only smiled grimly as he
heard the wind singing and piping through his rigging; he would scarcely
have shortened sail for a hurricane just then. The queer-looking
structure tore at racing speed across the smooth surface of the lagoon,
shearing through it with a vicious hiss along her bends and a roaring
wave under her lee bow, and so out to sea. Leslie was compelled to haul
his wind for a short distance after shooting through the channel, in
order to clear the northern extremity of the reef; but he tacked the
instant that he had room, and stood away to the southward, skirting the
outer margin of the reef as closely as he dared and gradually edging
away as the reef curved round in a westerly direction. He found himself
close in under the cliffs of Mermaid's Head about half an hour after
clearing the entrance channel, and then at once s