firmed his surmise as to the state of affairs ashore;
and no sooner was the anchor down than he dispatched a heavily-armed
boat, the officer of which was instructed to make his way instantly to
the cave and investigate. The meeting was, for both parties, a joyous
one; and as no savages had been seen by the landing party--they had
evidently fled into the woods--we lost no time in making our way to the
beach, taking our rifles and ammunition with us, and from the beach to
the _Jefferson_, where we were cordially welcomed and highly
complimented upon the vigorous defence of the cavern which we had put
up. To our infinite satisfaction we found that, acting upon
instructions, the commander of the gunboat had brought with him a
well-selected wardrobe for each of us, on the off-chance of his search
proving successful and the articles being needed. Consequently when, a
few hours later, we all sat down to breakfast in the commander's private
cabin, we scarcely recognised each other, clad as we now were once more
in the garb of civilisation in place of our discarded rags.

The war canoes and our boat were burnt where they lay on the beach, thus
leaving the savages prisoners on the island; and, this done, we got
under way for Manila, where we arrived nine days later.

From Manila a cable message was dispatched to Mr Vansittart,
immediately upon our arrival, informing him of our safety. And on the
following day a reply came from him expressing his delight at the news,
together with a cabled credit on the bank for funds amply sufficient to
convey the entire party to New York--where, via Yokohama and San
Francisco, we eventually arrived safely, by a freak of coincidence, two
years to a day from the date of our departure from London.

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