dy
two or three of the mutineers had started down the ravine, and the
others turned. Excitement seized upon them, as it had been a panic.

And then suddenly a cry arose: "Look, by thunder, look!"

The sun was gone, but the beautiful twilight lingered, serene and
gracious, and in that clear light we could descry the form of the _Sea
Queen_ forging slowly out to sea, and rolling as she moved on the ebb.

"Good lord! she's floated off! She came off on the high tide!" cried
Pierce; and instantly there was a stampede from the hillside towards
the beach. Pell-mell the mutineers tumbled down over bush and brier at
a breakneck speed to reach the boat that tossed idly on the water to
its moorings.

CHAPTER XXII

HOLGATE'S LAST HAND

The first thought that passed through my mind was that we had lost our
one hope of escape from Hurricane Island. Insensibly I had come to look
on the _Sea Queen_ as the vehicle of our rescue, and there she was
before my eyes adrift on a tide that was steadily drawing her seawards.
There could be no doubt as to that, for, even as I gazed, she made
perceptible way, and seemed to be footing it fast. I turned to Alix,
who was by me, staring also.

"I will come back," I said rapidly. "I must go down."

"No, no," she said, detaining me.

"Dear, they will take no heed of me now. I am perfectly safe for the
present. They are taken up with more important matters."

I squeezed her hands in both mine, turned and left her.

Holgate was some hundred yards in front of me, plunging heavily through
the bushes. He called to mind some evil and monstrous beast of the
forest that broke clumsily in wrath upon its enemy.

Down on the beach I could see that Pierce and some of the others, who
had already arrived, were casting the boat from her moorings. I
laboured after Holgate, and came out on the beach near him. He ran down
to the water's edge and called aloud:

"Put back. Put back, damn you."

The boat was some fifty yards from land by now, and was awash in a
broken current. Three men bent to the oars.

Holgate levelled his revolver and fired.

One of the men lay down grotesquely on his oar. He fired again, and one
of the remaining two stood up, shook a fist towards the shore and,
staggering backwards, capsized the boat in the surf. He must have sunk
like lead with his wound, for he never rose to the surface; but the
last man, who was Pierce, battled gallantly with the flood, and
endeavoured