remainder of the night passed, however, without further incident,
and at daybreak the occupants of the tent were once more astir and
preparing breakfast. Then, having satisfied their own appetites, they
took a good liberal supply of food to the hut and, loosing their
prisoner's bonds sufficiently to allow them the use of their hands, bade
them eat and drink freely.

Then, when at length Burton and his companion--whose name, it
transpired, was Samuel Cunliffe--sullenly acknowledged that they had
eaten and drunk all that they desired, their hands were once more lashed
securely behind them, their feet released, and they were bidden to
follow Leslie, who went ahead while Nicholls, as rear-guard, walked
close behind. And thus they all proceeded until the cave was reached,
where the two new arrivals were forced to join their fellow-prisoner,
Turnbull. And there, in that gloomy cavern, the exigencies of the
situation demanded that, for a time at least, they should be once more
subjected to the extreme discomfort of being lashed, hands and feet
together, as they had been in the hut on the previous night, in order to
avoid all possibility of their getting together and releasing each
other.

Having satisfied himself that his prisoners were absolutely secure, and
dressed Turnbull's wound afresh, Leslie, accompanied by Nicholls, next
made his way to the cove, where he found the cutter lying at anchor in
the centre of the little basin with all her canvas set and gently
flapping in the light breeze. And a marvellously pretty picture the
little craft presented with her snow-white hull, surmounted by a broad
expanse of scarcely less white cotton canvas, sitting daintily and
jauntily upon the water, the white of her hull and sails, and the ruddy
sheen of her copper sheathing brilliantly reflected upon the smooth,
dark surface of the element she rode in such saucy fashion. Dick stood
for some minutes feasting his eyes upon the pretty picture she presented
against the dark-brown background of scarred and riven rock that formed
the sides of the basin, and then he and Nicholls quickly descended the
precipitous slope to where the catamaran lay moored, and, jumping on
board her, paddled off to the _Flora_, whose namesake fortunately
happened to be on board her at the moment, but was just preparing to go
ashore for another ramble.

"I am afraid, dear, you cannot go just now," said Dick, "unless indeed
you would like to walk over to the