'll not," replied the officer. "Collect the arms, Forest, and
return them to the chest."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, obeying at once.

Every half-hour a gun from the whaler boomed over the sea, telling of
her presence; but it was evident that not understanding the firing, her
crew thought it safer to wait for daylight.

Isabel seemed stupefied with grief. Her senses were stunned by this
last crowning misfortune. The missionary had now joined her, and by the
feeble light had soon found that life was not quite extinct in his
friend's battered frame.

With the help of two of the mutineers, Hughes had been carried into the
cabin, and laid on the spare sails; some weak brandy-and-water had been
given him, and the blood washed from the pale face and clotted hair.

"It comes too late," muttered Isabel, as she bent over her husband's
body. "It comes too late. What to me is yonder ship? Father and
husband, father and husband gone!" she moaned.

"Hush!" said the missionary, as he sponged away the blood with a
handkerchief; "hush! he is not dead, only half drowned, and stunned."

The sailor Gough had, in his drunken fury, beaten his antagonist's head
against the jagged ends of the spars. The yielding water had softened
the shock, but as the two leaned over him, and the grey dawn stole
across the ocean, his head presented a terrible spectacle. They poured
more spirit and water down his throat, and gradually the colour came
back to his face. He opened his eyes, looking wildly around, and as he
did so, the light of returning consciousness came back to them.

At this moment, the boom of the whaler's forecastle gun was again heard,
as her men, who had in the darkness of the night seen only the flash of
the pistols, now caught sight of the raft, her head yards being at once
braced round, and her bows brought as near the wind as possible. The
sound struck the injured man's ear.

"It is help, it is safety," whispered Isabel. "Enrico, it is a ship!"

The soldier's eyes closed, his lips moved, and the blood mounted slowly
to his cheeks. "My Isabel, my beloved!" he murmured. A flood of tears
poured from Isabel's eyes as she threw herself into his arms; and the
missionary left the cabin, drawing down the sail as he did so over the
opening.

The raft did not show such proofs of the deadly fight which had taken
place on board of her as might have been imagined. The dead body of the
old captain was carefully place