r's eyes.
At once something--perhaps the latent silence of the schooner--told them
there was to be no answer. The two ran for-ward: Moran swung herself
into the fo'castle hatch, and without using the ladder dropped to the
deck below. In an instant her voice came up the hatch:

"The bunks are empty--they're gone--abandoned us." She came up the
ladder again.

"Look," said Wilbur, as she regained the deck. "The dory's gone; they've
taken it. It was our only boat; we can't get ashore."

"Cowardly, superstitious rats, I should have expected this. They
would be chopped in bits before they would stay longer on board this
boat--they and their-Feng shui."

When morning came the deserters could be made out camped on the shore,
near to the beached dory. What their intentions were could not be
conjectured. Ridden with all manner of nameless Oriental superstitions,
it was evident that the Chinamen preferred any hazard of fortune to
remaining longer upon the schooner.

"Well, can we get along without them?" said Wilbur. "Can we two work the
schooner back to port ourselves?"

"We'll try it on, anyhow, mate," said Moran; "we might get her into San
Diego, anyhow."

The Chinamen had left plenty of provisions on board, and Moran cooked
breakfast. Fortunately, by eight o'clock a very light westerly breeze
came up. Moran and Wilbur cast off the gaskets and set the fore and main
sails.

Wilbur was busy at the forward bitts preparing to cast loose from the
kelp, and Moran had taken up her position at the wheel when suddenly she
exclaimed:

"Sail ho!--and in God's name what kind of a sail do you call it?"

In fact a strange-looking craft had just made her appearance at the
entrance of Magdalena Bay.

VII. BEACH-COMBERS

Wilbur returned aft and joined Moran on the quarterdeck. She was already
studying the stranger through the glass.

"That's a new build of boat to me," she muttered, giving Wilbur the
glass. Wilbur looked long and carefully. The newcomer was of the size
and much the same shape as a caravel of the fifteenth century--high as
to bow and stern, and to all appearances as seaworthy as a soup-tureen.
Never but in the old prints had Wilbur seen such an extraordinary
boat. She carried a single mast, which listed forward; her lugsail was
stretched upon dozens of bamboo yards; she drew hardly any water. Two
enormous red eyes were painted upon either side of her high, blunt bow,
while just abaft the waist projected