eling some pity for him. I hung on my oars.

"Shall we pick him up?" I asked.

Legrand's only answer was an oath. He had forgotten the presence of
Alix, I think. His eyes blazed above his red cheeks.

"Let him drown," he said.

By the time we reached the _Sea Queen_, some of the mutineers, who had
started running when they saw us, had got to the water's edge opposite
to us, and one or two of them plunged in. In the distance, the others
were pursuing Pye and his boat.

Legrand, meanwhile, had taken the wheel, and Ellison set about the
sails. I did what I could to help, and it was not many minutes ere we
had the topsails going. Under that pressure the yacht began to walk
slowly. Seeing this, the mutineers on the shore raised a howl, and two
more jumped in to join the swimmers, who were now halfway to us.
Legrand cried out an order, and Ellison had the jib-sail set, and the
_Sea Queen_ quickened her pace under the brisk breeze. The swimming
mutineers dropped behind. There must have been half a dozen of them in
the water, and now we saw that they had given up the attempt to reach
us in that way and had fallen back on a new idea. They turned aside to
intercept Pye.

The little lawyer's clerk was paddling for life, and knew it, but he
made no way. The yacht moved faster, and he sent up to heaven a
dreadful scream that tingled in my ears. I made a step towards Legrand,
but he merely gave one glance backward towards the boat and then fixed
his gaze on the wide horizon of interminable sea, as though he thus
turned his back forever on Hurricane Island and all there. He pulled
the spokes of the wheel, and the _Sea Queen_, breasting the foam-heads,
began to leap. We were moving at a brisk pace.

I looked back to the unhappy man. He had fallen away now, but still
laboured at his oars. The swimmers could not have been more than twenty
yards from him. Just then Alix's voice was low with agitation in my
ears.

"Yvonne? Where is Yvonne?"

I turned to her and took her hand. "She will need no further care of
yours, sweetheart," I said. "She has played her last tragedy--a tragedy
she thought destined for a comedy."

Alix, looking at me, sighed, and ere she could say more Lane intervened
in huge excitement.

"Good heavens, Phillimore! the treasure's all in my safes again. By
crikey, is it all a dream?"

"Yes," I answered, looking at Alix, "all a bad nightmare."

I looked away across the sea, for somehow I could not help it.