starless night. At the
last moment Gerald Rodman had hoisted a light on the mizzen-rigging as a
guide to the four absent boats. As the mutineers pulled quickly away its
rays shone dimly over the barque's deserted decks.

When daylight came the _Shawnee_ was still drifting about on a sea as
smooth as glass, and the four boats reached her just before the dawn.
The boat with the mutineers could not be discerned even from aloft,
and Captain Harvey Lucy, in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, looked
first at his tottering foremast and then at the four whales which had
been towed alongside, waiting to be cut-in. With the rising sun came
another rain-squall, and the foremast went over the side, although
Martin Newman with his men had done their best to save it. But Lucy,
being a man of energy, soon rigged a jury-mast out of its wreck, and set
to work to cut-in his whales. Three days later the _Shawnee_ stood away
for Apia Harbour in Samoa.

"Those fellows have gone to Apia," he said to mate Brant, "and I'll go
there and get them if it takes me a month of Sundays."

But when the _Shawnee_ dropped anchor in the reef-bound harbour, Captain
Lucy found that he had come on a vain quest--the mutineers' boat had not
been seen.

For seven years nothing was ever heard of the missing boat, till one day
a tall, muscular-looking man, in the uniform of a sergeant of the New
South Wales Artillery, came on board the American whaleship _Heloise_,
as she lay in Sydney harbour, refitting. He asked for Captain Newman,
and was shown into the cabin.

The captain of the _Heloise_ was sitting at the cabin table reading a
book, and rose to meet his visitor.

"What can I do for you, sir? Good God! is it you, Gerald Rodman!"

The soldier put out his hand. "Is my sister alive, Newman?"

"She died three years ago in my arms, hoping and praying to the last
that she might see you and Ned before she died. And Ned?"

"Dead, Newman; he and Wray and Porter died of thirst. Harrod and I alone
survived that awful voyage, and reached New Zealand at last. Was Nell
buried with the old folks, Martin?"

"Yes," answered the captain of the _Heloise_, passing his hand quickly
over his eyes, "it was her wish to lie with them. We had only been
married two years."

The sergeant rose, and took Newman's hand in his, "Goodbye, Martin. Some
day I may stand with you beside her grave."

And then, ere the captain of the whaleship could stay him, he went on
deck, de