h us, they will have the wind all in their favour
instead of dead against them."

"That is very true," I assented. "It appears to me, however, that the
whole question hinges upon the point whether they are nearer to us or to
the brig; and in my opinion they are much nearer to the latter."

For fully another minute Mendouca continued to watch the boats; then he
suddenly exclaimed--

"I shall recall them. Clear away the bow gun there, and fire it with a
blank cartridge; and, Pedro, get out the recall signal, and stand by to
run it up to the main-truck at the flash of the gun."

The signal was made, the boom of the gun seeming to echo with a hollow,
long-drawn-out reverberation between sea and sky; and within a minute
the boats, with seeming reluctance, had turned and were pulling back to
the brigantine.

Meanwhile the heavens had continued to darken, until, by the time that
the boats had turned, the whole scene had become involved in a murky
twilight, through the gloom of which the brig, still with every stitch
of canvas set, could with difficulty be made out. Still, although it
seemed to me that the brooding squall might burst upon us at any moment,
the atmosphere maintained its ominous condition of stagnation until the
boats had reached within some four cables' lengths--or somewhat less
than half-a-mile--of us; when, as I was intently watching their
progress, I saw the sky suddenly break along the horizon just above
them, the clouds appearing as though rent violently apart for a length
of some ten or twelve degrees of arc, while the rent was filled with a
strong yet misty glare of coppery-yellow light, in the very centre of
which the brig stood out sharply-defined, and as black as a shape cut
out of silhouette paper.

"Here it comes, at last!" I exclaimed; and as the words passed my lips
I felt a spot of rain upon my face, and in another instant down it came,
a regular deluge, but only for about half a minute, when it ceased
abruptly, and, looking toward the brig, I saw a long line of white foam
sweeping down towards her.

"God help those poor, unhappy blacks!" I cried. "If that craft's spars
and rigging happen to be good she will turn the turtle with them, and
probably not one of them will escape!"

"It is a just punishment upon them for rising against the crew,"
exclaimed Mendouca savagely; "but if I had only succeeded in laying
hands upon them I would have inflicted a worse punishment upon them than
d