once impressed her as helmswoman, stationing her at the wheel, and
briefly explaining how she was to act upon the receipt of certain
signals from me. She seemed quite proud at the idea that she could be
really useful, and took her station at the wheel with a heightened
colour and sparkling eyes, which, with her spotless white dress, trimmed
with dainty lace and light-blue ribbons, her broad-brimmed hat set
jauntily upon the heavy coils of her dusky golden hair, and casting a
delicate shadow upon her lovely face, her hands and arms encased in long
loose gloves, and her delicate feet shod in small brown shoes, made her,
to my mind, the sweetest, loveliest picture that my eyes had ever rested
upon. So irresistibly charming, indeed, did she look, that I with
difficulty forebore from telling her so, plump and plain; and so, to
avoid the committal of such an impertinence, was constrained to rush
for'ard and add my weight to that of the others at the windlass handles
in their efforts to break out the anchor. Fortunately for us, our
windlass was an exceptionally good and powerful one; but, on the other
hand, the holding-ground proved to be exceptionally tenacious; and, for
a long five minutes, the cable stood straight up and down, rigid as a
solid bar, defying our utmost efforts to get so much as a single
additional pawl. Then an opportune puff, with a little more weight in
it than the soft breathing off the land that had hitherto reached us,
struck the broad expanses of our topsails, and, with a sudden jerk, the
ground broke away and the anchor came home.

"Hurrah, lads! she's away; heave, for your lives; heave, and raise the
dead!" vociferated Forbes.

The windlass pawls clanked merrily, the chain came rattling in through
the hawse-pipe, and the ship, gathering stern-way, began to pay off with
her head to seaward. At the right moment I signed to Miss Merrivale to
put the wheel hard up, while Forbes and I sprang aft to the braces and
swung the yards; the ship halted, hung stationary for a moment, and
then, gathering headway, gradually swept round until we had brought the
island upon our starboard beam and were gliding along under the lee of
its western shore. Our new voyage had begun.

The marooned men had all this time been intently watching our movements
from the beach; and, from their excited actions and the way in which
they closed up in a circle when they saw our canvas drop from the yards,
it was apparent that th