."

"That will be a bit of a knock for Rodway." "Do you know him?" asked
Captain Blake in surprise.

"I do indeed! I was master of the _Harvest Home_. Now come ashore. My
wife is getting as something to eat."

CHAPTER IV

At the end of another four weeks, the _Braybrook Castle_, with
three-fourths of the cargo she had brought from London, sailed for
Sydney under the command of Captain Blake of the _Harvest Queen_,
and the _Harvest Queen_ under jury masts, and with her valuable cargo
undamaged, was ready to sail, escorted by the _Dolphin_ on the following
day, with Lindley as master.

The last night at "Wreck House" was even a merrier and happier one than
that on which the wrecking party celebrated Lucy's "find." But yet Lucy
herself felt a little sad at saying farewell to this wild spot, where
amid the roar of the ever-beating surf, and the clamour of the gulls
and terns, she had spent the four happiest months of her life. The rough
food, the fresh sea-air, and the active life had, Lester declared, only
served to increase her beauty, and she herself had never felt so strong
and in such robust health before. Almost every day in fine weather she
had taken a walk to some part of the interior of the island, or along
the many white beaches, filling a large basket with sea-birds' eggs, or
collecting the many beautiful species of cowries and other sea-shells
with which the beaches were strewn. Years before, another wrecking party
had left some goats on the island, and these had thriven and increased
amazingly. Her husband's men had shot a great number for food, and
captured three or four, which supplied them with milk, and these latter,
with their playful kids, and a number of fowls which had been brought
from Sydney in the _Dolphin_, together with a pair of pet baby seals,
made up what she called her "farmyard." On one part of the island there
was a dense thicket of low trees, the resort not only of hundreds of
wild goats, but of countless thousands of terns and other sea-birds, who
had made it their breeding ground. It was situated at the head of a tiny
landlocked bay, the beach of which was covered with the weather-worn
spars and timbers of some great ship which had gone ashore there perhaps
thirty or forty years before. The whole of the foreshores of the island,
however, were alike in that respect, for it had proved fatal to many a
good ship, even from the time that gallant navigator Matthew Flinders
had first