s boat.

"In with you for your lives!" he cried. Another volley from the guard
spattered the water around the fugitives, but in the darkness the
ill-aimed bullets fell harmless. Gabbett swung himself over the sheets,
and seized an oar.

"Cox, Bodenham, Greenhill! Now, push her off! Jump, Tom, jump!" and as
Burgess leapt to land, Cornelius was dragged over the stern, and the
whale-boat floated into deep water.

McNab, seeing this, ran down to the water-side to aid the Commandant.

"Lift her over the Bar, men!" he shouted. "With a will--So!" And, raised
in twelve strong arms, the pursuing craft slid across the isthmus.

"We've five minutes' start," said Vetch coolly, as he saw the Commandant
take his place in the stern sheets. "Pull away, my jolly boys, and we'll
best 'em yet."

The soldiers on the Neck fired again almost at random, but the blaze of
their pieces only served to show the Commandant's boat a hundred yards
astern of that of the mutineers, which had already gained the deep water
of Pirates' Bay.

Then, for the first time, the six prisoners became aware that John Rex
was not among them.

CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE NIGHT.

John Rex had put into execution the first part of his scheme.

At the moment when, seeing Burgess's boat near the sand-spit, he
had uttered the warning cry heard by Vetch, he turned back into the
darkness, and made for the water's edge at a point some distance from
the Neck. His desperate hope was that, the attention of the guard being
concentrated on the escaping boat, he might, favoured by the darkness
and the confusion--swim to the peninsula. It was not a very marvellous
feat to accomplish, and he had confidence in his own powers. Once
safe on the peninsula, his plans were formed. But, owing to the strong
westerly wind, which caused an incoming tide upon the isthmus, it was
necessary for him to attain some point sufficiently far to the southward
to enable him, on taking the water, to be assisted, not impeded, by
the current. With this view, he hurried over the sandy hummocks at
the entrance to the Neck, and ran backwards towards the sea. In a few
strides he had gained the hard and sandy shore, and, pausing to listen,
heard behind him the sound of footsteps. He was pursued. The footsteps
stopped, and then a voice cried--

"Surrender!"

It was McNab, who, seeing Rex's retreat, had daringly followed him. John
Rex drew from his breast Troke's pistol and waited.

"Surrender!