hing or other, I daresay."

While Ben was thus delivering himself, Mr Brand was loading his
pistols. All things being ready, they stepped into the boat and shoved
off. They were immediately lost to sight in the thick darkness which
surrounded us. Their oars had been muffled; but we could hear the
gentle lap of the oars in the water for long afterwards, showing to what
a distance sound could travel, and that the scene of the outrage we had
been listening to might be further off than we supposed. As Mr Brand
had taken the bearings of the _Dove_, and proposed pulling directly to
the south-west, whence the sounds came, and directly in the eye of the
wind, such as there was, which had shifted to that quarter, we knew that
he would have no great difficulty in getting aboard us again. Still we
could not help feeling very anxious about him. The plan, however,
proposed by Ben Yool struck us as likely to prove as effectual as any
that could be conceived;--much more so than had the little _Dove_
herself appeared; for, as she did not measure more than twenty tons, she
was not calculated by her size to command respect, especially as she had
no guns on board, and we had only our rifles. Scarcely had the boat
left the side of the schooner when the shrieks were repeated. They
seemed louder, or at all events more distinct. We could no longer have
any doubt that they were uttered by human beings in distress. Old
Surley thought so too. He kept running about the deck in a state of
great agitation, and then stretched out his neck, and howled in reply to
the cry which reached his ears. We kept slowly gliding on under all
sail, keeping as close to the wind as we could, so as to beat up in the
direction of the sound. It had been arranged that we were to go about
every quarter of an hour, so that Mr Brand would know our whereabouts
and on what tack he was likely to find us on his return. Our ears were
kept open to catch any fresh sound, and our eyes were looking about us
in all directions, in case a break in the mist should reveal any object
to us; but an hour passed away, and no other cry was heard. There was a
little more wind, and it had shifted a point or so to the westward, and
perhaps that prevented sounds reaching us, we thought. Another hour
crept by, but still Mr Brand did not return. We began to be anxious
about him. We constantly went to the binnacle lamp to look at our
watches. It wanted but a short time to dayligh