y had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that
afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same
tone and with the same expression.

"May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?" said Mr Moor;
for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on
board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at
Keeling.

"The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl," said the captain.

"A what, sir?"

"A girl."

"Very well, sir."

This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went
into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An
amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim
Sloper, the _Sunshine_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that
evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part
of the southern hemisphere.

Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out
into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired
haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa,
which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a
view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to
prevent, as it were, premature explosion.

"My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata," said the captain to his second
mate, "will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he
returns."

"Looks like it, sir," said Mr Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds
which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened
volcano. "Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?"

"Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia
before us."

Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with
acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well fitted
to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It was, in
truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he
could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen
Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not relish the
idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as a
daughter.

"Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?" asked the
perplexed Holbein.

"Because--because, p'raps he won't come," answered the puzzled mariner,
who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his
son's orders. "Besides,