THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG

BOOKS BY JULES VERNE

THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG

THEIR ISLAND HOME

Resistance was hopeless against an entire crew of mutineers.

THE CASTAWAYS

OF THE FLAG

THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF

THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON

JULES VERNE

AUTHOR OF

“THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD,”

“THEIR ISLAND HOME,” etc.

Frontispiece by

H. C. MURPHY

NEW YORK

G. HOWARD WATT

1819 BROADWAY

1924

Copyright, 1924, by

G. HOWARD WATT

Printed in the United States of America

“THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

With the restoration of Fritz Zermatt and his wife Jenny, his brother Frank and the other Castaways of the Flag to their anxious and sorely tried relatives in New Switzerland, the story of “The Swiss Family Robinson” is brought to its proper end. Thereafter, the interest of their domestic life is merged in that of the growth of a young colony. Romance is merged in history and the romancer’s work is finished. Jules Verne has here set the coping stone on the structure begun by Rudolph Wyss, and in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “Their Island Home” and “The Castaways of the Flag” we have, not a story and two sequels, but a complete trilogy which judges who survey it must pronounce very good.

A word may be permitted about this English version. Jules Verne is a master of pure narrative. His style is singularly limpid and his language is so simple that people with a very limited knowledge of French can read his stories in the original and miss very little of their substance. But to be able to read a book in one language and to translate it into another are very different things. The very simplicity of Jules Verne’s French presents difficulties to one who would translate it into English. What the French call “idiotismes” abound in all Verne’s writing, and I know few French authors to whose books it is so difficult to impart a really English air in English dress. Whatever the imperfections of these translations may be they cannot, however, mar very greatly the pleasure the stories themselves give to every reader.

Cranstoun Metcalfe.

PREFACE

This story is a sequel to “Their Island Home,” which takes up the adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson at the place where the author of the original narrative dropped them.

“The Swiss Family Robinson” seems to have affected Jules Verne’s literary bent as no other book ever did. It gave him that liking for the lonely island life as the basis of a yarn which is conspicuous in much of his work. In a preface to the story of which this is really a part he tells how firmly New Switzerland established itself in the fabric of his thoughts, till it became for him a real island inhabited by real people. At last he was compelled to write about it, and “Their Island Home” and “The Castaways of the Flag” are the result.

The youth of Europe—many generations of it—owes a big debt to the old romancer who worked for so many years in his turret room at Amiens to entertain it. From that room, with its many bookshelves, came volume after volume of adventure, mostly with a big admixture of the scientific. M. Verne was not one of those who pile hairbreadth escapes one upon another till they become incredible. There are plenty of things happening in his books, but they are the sort of things that would happen, given the circumstances, and he explains why and how they chanced in the most convincing manner possible. In these days of submarines and aeroplanes it is interesting to read again the wonderful Frenchman’s forecast of them in such books as “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” and “The Clipper of the Clouds.” “Round the World in Eighty Days”—the task would be an easy one now, but at the time when he wrote it required great ingenuity to make it seem possible; and the end of that book is one of the most ingenious things in fiction, though it has for justification a simple geographical fact. Phineas Fogg was a day late, as he believed. He had apparently lost his wager. But, having gone round the world in the right direction, he had gained a day, and just won. If he had gone the other way he would have been two days late, for a day would have been lost to him—cut right out of the calendar!

The cryptogram which forms the main feature of “The Giant Raft”—the deflection of the compass in “Dick Sands,” which causes the people on the ship of which Dick had to take command to reach the coast of Africa, while believing that they had landed on the American continent—the device of the millionaire in “Godfrey Morgan,” which provided an island with beasts of prey not native to it—the gigantic projectile which carried those intrepid voyagers to the moon and round it—the reaching of the interior of the earth by a road down the crater of one volcano and the return to the surface up the crater of another—these are imaginations not readily forgotten. And the other stories—“Five Weeks in a Balloon,” “The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians,” “The Tribulations of a Chinaman,” the yarns dealing with the Indian Mutiny, “Michael Strogoff the Courier of the Czar,” and the rest—how entrancing they were, and still are to a boy, or a man with something of the boy yet in him!

“THEIR ISLAND HOME.”

Readers of the present book who have not read that named above—though all should read it as well as this—will have no difficulty in joining the story of the castaways to “The Swiss Family Robinson” with the help of the brief sketch of its contents which follows.

The story begins with the arrival of the Unicorn, a British corvette commanded by Lieutenant Littlestone, whose commission includes the exploration of the waters in which New Switzerland is situate. He has with him as passengers Mr. and Mrs. Wolston and their daughters Hannah and Dolly.

When the Unicorn weighs anchor again Mr. Wolston and his wife and their elder daughter, Hannah, remain on the island. But the corvette takes away Fritz and Frank Zermatt and Jenny Montrose, who are all bound for England, where Jenny hopes to find her father, Colonel Montrose, and the two young men have much business to transact, and Dolly Wolston, who is to join her brother James—a married man with one child—at Cape Town. Mr. Wolston hopes that James, with his wife and child, will agree to accompany Dolly and the Zermatts—by the time they return Jenny will have become Mrs. Fritz Zermatt—to the island and take up their abode there.

The Unicorn gone, those left behind settle themselves down to await her return, labouring meanwhile to make ready the island against the possibility of a number of immigrants. One of their first improvements is a canal for irrigation purposes. Mr. Wolston, a skilful engineer, and Ernest, clever and thoughtful, reader of many books and with a distinct scientific bent, are quite capable of planning such things as this.

There are seven people left on the island—M. and Mme. Zermatt, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, Jack Zermatt, adventurous and keen on sport, Ernest, and the charming Hannah. Between these last two a strong affection develops. The brothers, very unlike in nature, have little in common, but are good friends in spite of that fact; and the whole seven form practically one united and very happy family.

Only a small part of the island has ever been really explored during the ten years the Zermatts have been there. They now determine to find out more about it. In their pinnace, the Elizabeth, they voyage to a hitherto unknown coast, and, after a very arid stretch, find the mouth of a river, capable of floating the pinnace. They christen this the Montrose, in compliment to Jenny.

To the south they see a great mountain range. In order to get as near this as possible Mr. Wolston and Ernest make a canoe trip up the Montrose, but are stopped at length by rapids and a great natural dam.

They all return to Rock Castle and face the dull days of the rainy season, which proves more stormy than usual, and does some damage to their possessions elsewhere than at Rock Castle. That season over, they make preparations for another expedition—this time wholly by land, and made by Mr. Wolston, Jack, and Ernest only, M. Zermatt remaining with the three ladies.

The three are determined to reach the topmost peak of the mountain range, and after some considerable difficulty they achieve their object. They plant the British flag there, Lieut. Littlestone having provisionally taken possession of the island in Great Britain’s name, and they christen the mountain crest Jean Zermatt Peak. From it they discern out at sea a ship flying the British colours. But she disappears, to their intense disappointment.

At Rock Castle those left behind grow anxious when the time the explorers had expected to be away lengthens itself by several days. Then Mr. Wolston and Ernest turn up—without Jack.

That adventurous young man has wandered off after three elephants, in the hope of capturing and taming the calf after killing the father and mother. They have searched in vain for him, and are almost forced to the conclusion that something tragic must have happened.

But Jack turns up, safe and sound. He has, however, an alarming tale to tell. It would seem that their days of peace on the island are numbered. He has been captured by savages, and, though he has escaped by adroit courage, all know that the chance of the savages finding the Promised Land is one with which they must reckon.

The Unicorn is now past the time appointed for her return, and the seven have thus a double reason for anxiety.

Here “Their Island Home” finishes, and in the present book may be read what came of it all, and in what way they emerged from heavy trouble into peace and prosperity even greater than of old.

THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG

CHAPTER I
THE CASTAWAYS

Night—a pitch-dark night! It was almost impossible to distinguish sky from sea. From the sky, laden with clouds low and heavy, deformed and tattered, lightning flashed every now and then, followed by muffled rolls of thunder. At these flashes the horizon lit up for a moment and showed deserted and melancholy.

No wave broke in foam upon the surface of the sea. There was nothing but the regular and monotonous rolling of the swell and the gleam of ripples under the lightning flashes. Not a breath moved across the vast plain of ocean, not even the hot breath of the storm. But electricity so charged the atmosphere that it escaped in phosphorescent light, and ran up and down the rigging of the boat in tongues of Saint Elmo’s fire. Although the sun had set four or five hours ago, the sweltering heat of the day had not passed.

Two men talked in low tones, in the stern of a big ship’s boat that was decked in to the foot of the mast. Her foresail and jib were flapping as the monotonous rolling shook her.

One of these men, holding the tiller tucked under his arm, tried to dodge the cruel swell that rolled the boat from side to side. He was a sailor, about forty years of age, thick-set and sturdy, with a frame of iron on which fatigue, privation, even despair, had never taken effect. An Englishman by nationality, this boatswain was named John Block.

The other man was barely eighteen, and did not seem to belong to the sea-faring class.

In the bottom of the boat, under the poop and seats, with no strength left to pull the oars, a number of human beings were lying, among them a child of five years old—a poor little creature whose whimpering was audible, whom its mother tried to hush with idle talk and kisses.

Before the mast, upon the poop, and near the jib stays, two people sat motionless and silent, hand in hand, lost in the most gloomy thoughts. So intense was the darkness that it was only by the lightning flashes that they could see each other.

From the bottom of the boat a head was lifted sometimes, only to droop again at once.

The boatswain spoke to the young man lying by his side.

“No, no. I watched the horizon until the sun went down. No land in sight—not a sail! But what I didn’t see this evening will perhaps be visible at dawn.”

“But, bo’sun,” his companion answered, “we must get to land somewhere in the next forty-eight hours, or we shall have succumbed.”

“That’s true,” John Block agreed. “Land must appear—simply must. Why, continents and islands were made on purpose to give shelter to brave men, and one always ends by getting to them!”

“If the wind helps one, bo’sun.”

“That is the only reason wind was invented,” John Block replied. “To-day, as bad luck would have it, it was busy somewhere else, in the middle of the Atlantic or the Pacific perhaps, for it didn’t blow enough here to fill my cap. Yes, a jolly good gale would blow us merrily along.”

“Or swallow us up, Block.”

“Oh no, not that! No, no, not that! Of all ways to bring this job to a finish, that would be the worst.”

“Who can tell, bo’sun?”

Then for some minutes the two men were silent. Nothing could be heard but the gentle rippling under the boat.

“How is the captain?” the young man went on.

“Captain Gould, good man, is in bad case,” John Block replied. “How those blackguards knocked him about! The wound in his head makes him cry out with pain. And it was an officer in whom he had every confidence who stirred those wretches up! No, no! One fine morning, or one fine afternoon, or perhaps one fine evening, that rascal of a Borupt shall make his last ugly face at the yardarm or——”

“The brute! The brute!” the young man exclaimed, clenching his fists in wrath. “But poor Harry Gould! You dressed his wounds this evening, Block——”

“Ay, ay; and when I put him back under the poop, after I had put compresses on his head, he was able to speak to me, though very feebly. ‘Thanks, Block, thanks,’ he said—as if I wanted thanks! ‘And land? What about land?’ he asked. ‘You may be quite sure, captain,’ I told him, ‘that there is land somewhere, and perhaps not very far off.’ He looked at me and closed his eyes.”

And the boatswain murmured in an aside: “Land? Land? Ah, Borupt and his accomplices knew very well what they were about! While we were shut up in the bottom of the hold, they altered the course; they went some hundreds of miles away before they cast us adrift in this boat—in seas where a ship is hardly ever seen, I guess.”

The young man had risen. He stooped, listening to port.

“Didn’t you hear anything, Block?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” the boatswain answered; “this swell is as noiseless as if it were made of oil instead of water.”

The young man said no more, but sat down again with his arms folded across his breast.

Just at this moment one of the passengers sat up, and exclaimed, with a gesture of despair:

“I wish a wave would smash this boat up, and swallow us all up with it, rather than that we should all be given over to the horrors of starvation! To-morrow we shall have exhausted the last of our provisions. We shall have nothing left at all.”

“To-morrow is to-morrow, Mr. Wolston,” the boatswain replied. “If the boat were to capsize there wouldn’t be any to-morrow for us; and while there is a to-morrow——”

“John Block is right,” his young companion answered. “We must not give up hope, James! Whatever danger threatens us, we are in God’s hands, to dispose of as He thinks fit. His hand is in all that comes to us, and it is not right to say that He has withdrawn it from us.”

“I know,” James whispered, drooping his head, “but one is not always master of one’s self.”

Another passenger, a man of about thirty, one of those who had been sitting in the bows, approached John Block and said:

“Bo’sun, since our unfortunate captain was thrown into this boat with us—and that is a week ago already—it is you who have taken his place. So our lives are in your hands. Have you any hope?”

“Have I any hope?” John Block replied. “Yes! I assure you I have. I hope these infernal calms will come to an end shortly and that the wind will take us safe to harbour.”

“Safe to harbour?” the passenger answered, his eyes trying to pierce the darkness of the night.

“Well, what the deuce!” John Block exclaimed. “There is a harbour somewhere! All we have to do is to steer for it, with the wind whistling through the yards. Good Lord! If I were the Creator I would show you half a dozen islands lying all round us, waiting our convenience!”

“We won’t ask for as many as that, bo’sun,” the passenger replied, unable to refrain from smiling.

“Well,” John Block answered, “if He will drive our boat towards one of those which exist already, it will be enough, and He need not make any islands on purpose, although, I must say, He seems to have been a bit stingy with them hereabouts!”

“But where are we?”

“I can’t tell you, not even within a few hundred miles,” John Block replied. “You know that for a whole long week we were shut up in the hold, unable to see what course the ship was shaping, whether south or north. Anyhow, it must have been blowing steadily, and the sea did plenty of rolling and chopping.”

“That is true, John Block, and true, too, that we must have gone a long way; but in what direction?”

“About that I don’t know anything,” the boatswain declared. “Did the ship go off to the Pacific, instead of making for the Indian Ocean? On the day of the mutiny we were off Madagascar. But since then, as the wind has blown from the west all the time, we may have been taken hundreds of miles from there, towards the islands of Saint Paul and Amsterdam.”

“Where there are none but savages of the worst possible sort,” James Wolston remarked. “But after all, the men who cast us away are not much better.”

“One thing is certain,” John Block declared; “that wretch Borupt must have altered the Flag’s course and made for waters where he will be most likely to escape punishment, and where he and his gang will play pirates! So I think that we were a long way out of our proper course when this boat was cut adrift. But I wish we might strike some island in these seas—even a desert island would do! We could live all right by hunting and fishing; we should find shelter in some cave. Why shouldn’t we make of our island what the survivors of the Landlord made of New Switzerland? With strong arms, brains, and pluck——”

“Very true,” James Wolston answered, “but the Landlord did not fail her passengers. They were able to save her cargo, while we shall never have anything from the Flag’s cargo.”

The conversation was interrupted. A voice that rang with pain was heard:

“Drink! Give me something to drink!”

“It’s Captain Gould,” one of the passengers said. “He is eaten up with fever. Luckily there is plenty of water, and——”

“That’s my job,” said the boatswain. “Do one of you take the tiller. I know where the can is, and a few mouthfuls will give the captain ease.”

And John Block left his seat aft and went forward into the bows of the boat.

The three other passengers remained in silence, awaiting his return.

After being away for two or three minutes John Block came back to his post.

“Well?” someone enquired.

“Someone got there before me,” John Block answered. “One of our good angels was with the patient already, pouring a little fresh water between his lips, and bathing his forehead that was wet with sweat. I don’t know whether Captain Gould was conscious. He seemed to be delirious. He was talking about land. ‘The land ought to be over there,’ he kept saying, and his hand was wobbling about like the pennon on the mainmast when all winds are blowing at once. I answered: ‘Ay, ay, captain, quite so. The land is somewhere! We shall reach it soon. I can smell it, to northwards.’ And that is a sure thing. We old sailors can smell land like that. And I said too: ‘Don’t be uneasy, captain, everything is all right. We have a stout boat and I will keep her course steady. There must be more islands hereabouts than we could know what to do with. Too many to choose from! We shall find one to suit our convenience—an inhabited island where we shall find a welcome and where we shall be sent home from.’ The poor chap understood what I said, I am sure, and when I held the lantern near his face he smiled to me—such a sad smile!—and at the good angel too. Then he closed his eyes again, and fell asleep almost at once. Well! I may have lied pretty heavily when I talked about land to him as if it were only a few miles off, but was I far wrong?”

“No, Block,” the youngest passenger replied; “that is the kind of lie that God allows.”

The conversation ended, and the silence was only broken thereafter by the flapping of the sail against the mast as the boat rolled from one side to the other. Most of those who were aboard her, broken down by fatigue and weakened by long privation, forgot their terrors in heavy sleep.

Although these unhappy people still had something wherewith to quench their thirst, they would have nothing wherewith to appease their hunger in the coming days. Of the few pounds of salt meat that had been flung into the boat when she was pushed off, nothing now remained. They were reduced to one bag of sea-biscuits for eleven people. How could they manage, if the calm persisted? And for the last forty-eight hours not one breath of breeze had stolen through the stifling atmosphere, not even one of those intermittent gusts which are like the last sighs of a dying man. It meant death by starvation, and that within a short time.

There was no steam navigation in those days. So the probability was that, in the absence of wind, no ship would come into sight, and, in the absence of wind, the boat could not reach land, whether island or continent.

It was necessary to have perfect faith in God to combat utter despair, or else to possess the unshakeable philosophy of the boatswain, which consisted in refusing to see any but the bright side of things. Even now he muttered to himself:

“Ay, ay, I know; the time will come when the last biscuit will have been eaten; but as long as one can keep one’s stomach one mustn’t grumble, even if there is nothing to put in it! Now, if one hadn’t got a stomach left, even if there were plenty to put in it—that would be really serious!”

Two hours passed. The boat had not moved a cable’s length, for there was only the motion of the swell to affect her. Now the swell does not move forward; it merely makes the surface of the water undulate. A few chips of wood that had been thrown over the side the day before were still floating close by, and the sail had not filled once to move the boat away from them.

While merely afloat like this, it was little use to remain at the helm. But the boatswain declined to leave his post. With the tiller under his arm, he tried at least to avoid the lurching which tilted the boat to one side and another, and thus to spare his companions excessive shaking.

It was about three o’clock in the morning when John Block felt a light breath pass across his cheeks, roughened and hardened as they were by the salt sea air.

“Can the wind be getting up?” he murmured as he rose.

He turned towards the south, and wetting his finger in his mouth, held it up. There was a distinct sensation of coldness, caused by the evaporation, and now a distant rippling sound became audible.

He turned to the passenger sitting on the middle bench, near one of the women.

“Mr. Fritz!” he said.

Fritz Robinson raised his head and bent round.

“What do you want, bo’sun?” he asked.

“Look over there—towards the east.”

“What do you think you see?”

“If I’m not mistaken, a kind of rift, like a belt, on the water-line.”

Unmistakably there was a lighter line along the horizon in that direction. Sky and sea could be distinguished with more definiteness. It was as if a rent had just been made in the dome of mist and vapour.

“It’s wind!” the boatswain declared.

“Isn’t it only the first beginning of daybreak?” the passenger asked.

“It might be daylight, though it’s very early for it,” John Block replied, “and again it might be a breeze! I felt something of it in my beard just now, and look!—it’s twitching still! I’m aware it’s not a breeze to fill the top-gallant sails, but anyhow it’s more than we’ve had for the last four and twenty hours. Put your hand to your ear, Mr. Fritz, and listen; you’ll hear what I heard.”

“You are right,” said the passenger, leaning over the gunwale; “it is the breeze.”

“And we’re ready for it,” the boatswain replied, “with the foresail block and tackle. We’ve only got to haul the sheet taut to save all the wind which is rising.”

“But where will it take us?”

“Wherever it likes,” the boatswain answered; “all I want it to do is to blow us out of these cursed waters!”

Twenty minutes went by. The breath of wind, which at first was almost imperceptible, grew stronger. The rippling aft became louder. The boat made a few rougher motions, not caused by the slow, nauseating swell. Folds of the sail spread out, fell flat, and opened again, and the sheet sagged against its cleats. The wind was not strong enough yet to fill the heavy canvas of the foresail and the jib. Patience was needed, while the boat’s head was kept to her course as well as might be by means of one of the sculls.

A quarter of an hour later, progress was marked by a light wake.

Just at this moment one of the passengers who had been lying in the bows got up and looked at the rift in the clouds to the eastward.

“Is it a breeze?” he asked.

“Yes,” John Block answered. “I think we have got it this time, like a bird in the hand—and we won’t let go of it!”

The wind was beginning to spread steadily now through the rift, through which, too, the first gleams of light must come. From south-east to south-west, the clouds still hung in heavy masses, over three-quarters of the circumference of the sky. It was still impossible to see more than a few cables’ lengths from the boat, and beyond that distance no ship could have been detected.

As the breeze had freshened, the sheet had to be hauled in, the foresail, whose gear was slackened, hoisted, and the course veered a point or two, so as to give the jib a hold on the wind.

“We’ve got it; we’ve got it!” the boatswain said cheerily, and the boat, heeling gently over to starboard, dipped her nose into the first waves.

Little by little the rent in the clouds grew bigger and spread overhead. The sky assumed a reddish hue. It seemed that the wind might hold to the present quarter for some little time, and that the period of calms had come to an end.

Hope of reaching land revived once more, or the alternative hope of falling in with a ship.

At five o’clock the rent in the clouds was ringed with a collar of vivid coloured clouds. It was the day, appearing with the suddenness peculiar to the low latitudes of the tropical regions. Soon purple rays of light arose above the horizon, like the sticks of a fan. The rim of the solar disc, heightened by the refraction, touched the horizon line, drawn clearly now at the end of sky and sea. At once the rays of light caught on the little clouds which hung in the high heaven, and dyed them every shade of crimson. But they were stubbornly arrested by the dense vapours accumulated in the north, and could not break through them. And so the range of vision, long behind, was still extremely limited in front. The boat was leaving a long wake behind her now, marked in creamy white upon the greenish water.

And now the whole sun emerged above the horizon, enormously magnified at its diameter. No haze dimmed its brilliance, which was insupportable to the eye. All aboard the boat looked away from it; they only scanned the north, whither the wind was carrying them. The main question was what the fog screened from them in that direction.

At length, just before half-past six, one of the passengers seized the halyards of the foresail and clambered nimbly up to the yardarm, just as the sun cleared the sky to the eastward with its early rays.

And in a ringing voice he shouted:

“Land!”

CHAPTER II
IN ENGLAND

It was on the 20th of October that the Unicorn had left New Switzerland on her way back to England. On her return, when the Admiralty sent to take possession of the new colony in the Indian Ocean, after a brief stop at the Cape of Good Hope, she was to bring back Fritz and Frank Zermatt, Jenny Montrose and Dolly Wolston. The two brothers took the berths left vacant by the Wolstons who were now settled on the island. A comfortable cabin had been placed at the disposal of Jenny and her little companion Dolly, who was going to join James Wolston and his wife and child at Cape Town.

After rounding the False Hope Point the Unicorn sailed westward before the wind and came down to the south again, leaving the island of Burning Rock to her starboard. Before finally leaving New Switzerland Lieutenant Littlestone decided to reconnoitre its eastern coast as well, in order to satisfy himself that it really was an isolated island in these seas, and to form an approximate idea of the size of a colony which would soon be included among the island dominions of Great Britain. As soon as he had done this, the corvette, with a fair wind behind her, left the island to the north-west, after getting little more than a glimpse of its southern portion through the haze and fog.

Fortune favoured the first few weeks of the voyage. The passengers on the Unicorn were delighted with the weather, as well as with the cordial treatment which they received from the commander and the other officers. When they all met at table in the officers’ mess, or under the awning on the poop, the conversation generally turned upon the wonders of New Switzerland. If the corvette met with nothing to delay her they all hoped to see it again within the year.

Fritz and Jenny often talked of Colonel Montrose, and of the gladness that would be his when he clasped in his arms the daughter whom he had thought he would never see again. For three years no news had been received of the Dorcas, whose loss with nearly all hands had been confirmed, by the survivors who had been taken to Sydney. But when they reached England Jenny would present to her father the man who had rescued her, and would beg him to bless their union.

As for Frank, though Dolly Wolston was only fourteen, it would not be without a bitter pang that he would leave her at Cape Town, and keen would be his longing to come back to her side!

After crossing the Tropic, off the Isle of France, the Unicorn encountered less favourable winds. These delayed her arrival at her port until the 17th of December, two months after her departure from New Switzerland.

The corvette came to anchor in the harbour of Cape Town, where she was to remain for a week.

One of the first visitors to come aboard was James Wolston. He knew that his father, mother, and two sisters had taken passages on the Unicorn, and his disappointment can be imagined at finding that there was only one sister for him to meet. Dolly presented Fritz and Frank Zermatt to him.

“Your father and mother and sister Hannah are living in New Switzerland now, Mr. Wolston,” Fritz told him; “an unknown island on which my family was cast twelve years ago, after the wreck of the Landlord. They have decided to remain there and expect you to join them. When she comes back from Europe the Unicorn will take you and your wife and child to our island, if you are willing to go with us.”

“When is the corvette due back at the Cape?” James Wolston enquired.

“In eight or nine months,” Fritz replied, “and she will go from here to New Switzerland where the British flag will be flying. My brother Frank and I have availed ourselves of this opportunity to take back to London the daughter of Colonel Montrose who, we hope, will consent to come and settle with her in our second fatherland.”

“And with you too, Fritz dear; for you will have become his son,” Jenny added, giving him her hand.

“That is my most ardent wish, Jenny dear,” said Fritz.

“And we and our parents do very much want you to bring your family and settle in New Switzerland,” Dolly Wolston added.

“You must insist on the fact, Dolly,” Frank declared, “that our island is the most wonderful island that has ever appeared above the sea.”

“James will be the first to agree, when he has seen it,” Dolly answered. “When once you have set foot in New Switzerland, and stayed at Rock Castle——”

“And roosted at Falconhurst, eh, Dolly?” said Jenny, laughing.

“Yes, roosted,” the little girl replied; “well, then you will never want to leave New Switzerland again!”

“You hear Mr. Wolston?” said Fritz.

“I hear, M. Zermatt,” James Wolston answered. “To settle in your island and open up its first commercial relations with Great Britain is a proposition that I find peculiarly inviting. My wife and I will talk about it, and if we decide to go we will wind up our affairs and hold ourselves in readiness to embark upon the Unicorn when she comes back to Cape Town. I am sure Susan will not hesitate.”

“I will do whatever my husband wishes,” Mrs. Wolston said.

Fritz and Frank shook James Wolston’s hand warmly as Dolly kissed her sister-in-law.

“While the corvette stays here,” James Wolston then explained, “we expect you all to accept the hospitality of our house. That will be the best way to knit our friendship, and we will talk as much as you please about New Switzerland.”

Naturally the passengers on the Unicorn accepted this invitation in the spirit in which it had been offered.

An hour later Mr. and Mrs. James Wolston received their guests. Fritz and Frank were given a room between them, and Jenny shared the one allotted to Dolly, as she had shared her cabin during the voyage.

Mrs. James Wolston was a young woman of twenty-four, gentle, intelligent, and devoted to her husband. He was an earnest and active man, very much like his father. They had one boy, Bob, now five years old, whom they adored.

During the ten days that the Unicorn remained in the port, from the 17th to the 27th of December, little was talked about but New Switzerland, the events of which it had been the stage, the various works undertaken, and the many contrivances and improvements effected on the island. The subject was never exhausted. Dolly would expatiate on all these wonderful things, and Frank would encourage her to go on, and even find fault with her for not saying enough. Then Jenny Montrose would embroider the tale, to Fritz’s keen delight.

In a word, the time sped, and James Wolston and his wife quite made up their minds to leave the Cape for New Switzerland. During the voyage of the corvette home and out again, Wolston would employ himself winding up his affairs and realising his capital; he would be ready to start directly the Unicorn reappeared; and he would be one of the first emigrants to the island.

The last good-byes had to be said at length, with the comforting reflection that in another eight or nine months they would be at Cape Town again, and that then they would all put to sea together, outward bound for New Switzerland. Nevertheless, the parting was a painful one. Jenny Montrose and Susan Wolston mingled their kisses and tears, to which Dolly’s were added. The child was much distressed by Frank’s departure, and his heart, too, was heavy, for he had grown very fond of her. As he and his brother clasped James Wolston’s hand they could assure themselves that they were leaving there a true friend indeed.

The Unicorn put to sea on the 27th, in somewhat overcast weather. Her passage was of average length. For several weeks winds varied from north-west to south-west. The corvette spoke Saint Helena, Ascension, and the Cape Verde Islands. Then, after passing in sight of the Canaries and Azores, off the coasts of Portugal and France, she came up the Channel, rounded the Isle of Wight, and, on the 14th of February, dropped anchor at Portsmouth.

Jenny Montrose wanted to start at once for London, where her aunt lived. If the Colonel were on active service she would not find him there, since the campaign for which he had been recalled from India might have lasted for several years. But if he had retired, he would have settled near his sister-in-law, and it would be there that he would at length set eyes again upon her whom he believed to have perished in the wreck of the Dorcas.

Fritz and Frank offered to escort Jenny to London, whither business called them also, and Fritz naturally wanted to meet Colonel Montrose soon. So all three set out the same evening, and arrived in London during the morning of the 23rd.

But bitter grief fell upon Jenny Montrose. She learned from her aunt that the colonel had died during his last campaign, without the happiness of knowing that the daughter whom he had mourned for was still alive. After coming back from the far waters of the Indian Ocean to embrace her father, hoping never to part from him again, to present her saviour to him, and to beg for his consent to their union and his blessing on it, Jenny would never see him more!

Her distress was great. In vain her aunt lavished on her words of consolation; in vain Fritz sorrowed with her. The blow was too cruel. She had never even thought of the possibility that her father might be dead.

A few days later, in a conversation broken by tears and regrets, Jenny said to him:

“Fritz, dear Fritz, we have just experienced the bitterest of misfortunes, you and I. If you have not changed your mind at all——”

“Oh, Jenny, my darling!” Fritz exclaimed.

“Yes, I know,” said Jenny, “and my father would have been happy to call you his son. I am sure he would have wanted to go with us and share our life in the new English colony. But I must give up that happiness. I am alone in the world now, and have only myself to depend upon! Alone? No, no! You are there, Fritz.”

“Jenny,” said the young man, “the whole of my life shall be devoted to your happiness.”

“And mine to yours, Fritz dear! But since my father is no longer here to give us his consent, since I have no near relations living, and since yours is the only family I can call my own——”

“You have belonged to it three years already, Jenny dear, ever since the day when I found you on Burning Rock.”

“I love them all, and they love me, Fritz! Well, in a few months more we shall be with them all again; we shall be back——”

“Married, Jenny?”

“Yes, Fritz, if you wish it, since you have your father’s consent and my aunt will not refuse me hers.”

“Jenny, dear Jenny!” Fritz exclaimed, falling on his knees beside her. “Our plans will not be changed at all, and I shall take back my wife to my father and mother.”

Jenny Montrose remained henceforth in her aunt’s house, where Fritz and Frank came every day to see her. Meanwhile all the necessary arrangements were made for the celebration of the marriage within the briefest time that the law permitted.

But there was other business of some importance to be attended to, business which had been the purpose of the two brothers in coming to Europe.

There was the sale of the various articles of value collected on the island, the coral gathered on Whale Island, the pearls taken from the bay, the nutmegs and the vanilla. M. Zermatt had not been mistaken about their market value. They produced the considerable sum of eight thousand pounds sterling.

When one remembered that the banks of Pearl Bay had been no more than skimmed, that coral was to be found on many parts of the coast, that nutmegs and vanilla could be produced in large quantities, and that there were many other treasures in New Switzerland, one had to acknowledge that the colony was destined for a height of prosperity which set it in the foremost of the over-sea dominions of Great Britain.

In accordance with M. Zermatt’s instructions part of the sum realised from the sale of these articles was to be spent upon things required to complete the stock at Rock Castle and the farms in the Promised Land. The rest, about three-quarters of the whole sum, and the ten thousand pounds coming from Colonel Montrose’s estate, were deposited in the Bank of England, upon which M. Zermatt would be able to draw in the future as he might require, thanks to the communication which would soon be established with the capital.

Restitution was made of the various jewels and monies belonging to the families of those who had been lost with the Landlord, who had been traced after enquiry.

Finally, a month after the arrival of Fritz Zermatt and Jenny Montrose in London, their marriage was celebrated there by the chaplain of the corvette. The Unicorn had brought them as an engaged couple, and would take them back to New Switzerland a married couple.

All these events excited a considerable interest throughout Great Britain in the family which had been abandoned for a dozen years on an unknown island in the Indian Ocean, and in Jenny’s adventures and her stay on Burning Rock. The story which had been written by Jean Zermatt appeared in the English and foreign newspapers, and under the title of “The Swiss Family Robinson,” it was destined to a fame equal to that won already by the immortal work of Daniel Defoe.

The consequence of all this was that the Admiralty decided to take possession of New Switzerland. Moreover, this new possession had some very considerable advantages to offer. The island occupied an important position in the east of the Indian Ocean, near the entrance to the Sunda seas, on the road to the Far East. Seven hundred and fifty miles at most separated it from the western coast of Australia. The sixth part of the world, discovered by the Dutch in 1605, visited by Abel Tasman in 1644 and by Captain Cook in 1774, was destined to become one of England’s principal dominions. Thus the Admiralty could but congratulate itself on its acquisition of an island so near that continent.

And thus the despatch of the Unicorn to its waters was decided upon. The corvette would set out again in a few months under the command of Lieutenant Littlestone, promoted captain on this occasion. Fritz and Jenny Zermatt were to sail in her with Frank, and also a few colonists, pending the time when other emigrants, in larger numbers, would sail in other ships to the same destination.

It was arranged that the corvette should put in at the Cape to pick up James and Susan and Dolly Wolston.

The lengthy stay of the Unicorn at Portsmouth was due to the fact that repairs of some magnitude had become absolutely necessary after her voyage from Sydney to Europe.

Fritz and Frank did not spend the whole of this time in London or in England. They and Jenny regarded it as a duty to visit Switzerland, so as to be able to take to M. and Mme. Zermatt some news of their native land.

So they went first to France, and spent a week in Paris. The Empire had just ended at this date, as also had the long wars with Great Britain.

Fritz and Frank arrived in Switzerland, the country which they had almost forgotten, so young had they been when they left it, and from Geneva they went to the canton of Appenzel.

Of their family none remained except a few distant relatives of whom M. and Mme. Zermatt knew little. But the arrival of the two young men caused a great sensation in the Swiss Republic. Everybody knew the story of the survivors of the wreck of the Landlord, and knew the island now on which they had found refuge. Thus, although their fellow countrymen were little inclined to run the risks involved in emigration, several declared their intention of joining those colonists to whom New Switzerland promised a cordial welcome.

It was not without a pang that Fritz and Frank left the land of their origin. Even if they might hope to visit it again in the future, that was a hope which M. and Mme. Zermatt, advancing now in years, would hardly realise.

Crossing France, Fritz and Jenny and Frank returned to England.

Preparations for the sailing of the Unicorn were drawing to a close, and the corvette would be ready to set sail in the last few days of June.

Both Fritz and Frank were received with flattering attention by the Lords of the Admiralty. England was grateful to Jean Zermatt for having of his own free will offered Captain Littlestone immediate possession of his island.

As has been explained, when the corvette left New Switzerland, the greatest portion of the island was still unexplored, save the district of the Promised Land, the littoral on the north, and part of the littoral on the east as far as Unicorn Bay. Captain Littlestone was therefore to complete its survey both on the west and south and also in the interior. In a few months more, several ships would be fitted out to take emigrants and the materials required in colonisation and to put the island in a proper state of defence. Then regular communication would be established between Great Britain and those distant waters of the Indian Ocean.

On the 27th of June the Unicorn was ready to weigh anchor, and only waited for Fritz and Jenny and Frank. On the 28th the three arrived at Portsmouth, whither the stores purchased on behalf of the Zermatt family had been sent in advance.

They were warmly welcomed aboard the corvette by Captain Littlestone, whom they had had one or two opportunities of meeting in London. How happy they were in the thought of seeing James and Susan Wolston again at Cape Town, and also the charming little Dolly, whom Frank had kept constantly supplied with news, and good news too, of everybody.

In the morning of the 29th of June, the Unicorn left Portsmouth with a fair wind, flying at the peak the English flag which was to be planted upon the shores of New Switzerland.

CHAPTER III
THE MUTINY ON THE FLAG

A cabin was reserved for Fritz and his wife in the Unicorn, and an adjoining one for Frank, and they took their meals at Captain Littlestone’s table.

Nothing of special note happened during the voyage. There were all the usual incidents, changeable seas, uncertain winds, calms, and a few violent outbreaks of heavy weather through which the corvette came without much damage. In the South Atlantic they passed a few vessels which would report tidings of the Unicorn in Europe. In the present interval of peace after the long period of great wars, the high seas were safe.

But the Unicorn, which had had a fairly easy time while crossing the Atlantic, met with shocking weather when south of Africa. A violent storm burst on her during the night of the 19th of August, and the gale drove her out to sea again. The hurricane grew more and more violent, and they had to run before it, as it was impossible to lie to. Captain Littlestone, splendidly supported by his officers and crew, displayed great skill. The mizzen-mast had to be cut away, and a leak was sprung aft which was only smothered with difficulty. At last, when the wind fell, Captain Littlestone was able to resume his course and hurried to the harbour at Cape Town for repairs.

On the morning of the 10th of September the top of the Table, the mountain which gives its name to the bay, was sighted.

Directly the Unicorn had found her moorings, James Wolston, with his wife and Dolly, came out in a boat.

What a welcome they gave Fritz and Jenny and Frank, and how happy they all were!

For the last ten months they had perforce been without news. Although there was no particular ground for imagining that anything untoward had befallen the people at Rock Castle, this absence could not but seem very long.

James Wolston’s affairs had all been wound up satisfactorily.

But they found themselves confronted by the impossibility of putting to sea at once. The damage done to the Unicorn was serious enough to necessitate a prolonged stay in Cape Town harbour. It would take two or three months to make repairs, after her cargo had been taken out of the corvette. She could not possibly sail for New Switzerland before the end of October.

But the passengers on the Unicorn had an unexpected opportunity of shortening their stay at the Cape.

There happened to be in the harbour a vessel, due to sail in a fortnight. She was the Flag, an English three-masted vessel of five hundred tons, captain Harry Gould, bound for Batavia, in the Sunda Islands. To put in at New Switzerland would take her very little out of her course, and the passengers for the island were prepared to pay a good price for their passage.

Their proposal was accepted by Captain Gould, and the Unicorn’s passengers transferred their baggage to the Flag.

The three-master’s preparations were finished in the afternoon of the 20th of September. That evening they said good-bye, not without regret, to Captain Littlestone, promising to look out for the arrival of the Unicorn at the mouth of Deliverance Bay towards the end of November.

Next morning the Flag sailed, with a favouring wind from the south-west, and before the evening of that first day the high summits of the Cape, left forty miles behind, disappeared below the horizon.

Harry Gould was a fine sailor, with cool courage equal to his resolution. He was now in the prime of life, at forty-two, and had shown his quality both as mate and captain. His owners had every confidence in him.

To this confidence, Robert Borupt, the second officer on the Flag, was not entitled. He was a man of the same age as Harry Gould, jealous, vindictive, and of uncontrolled passions. He never believed that he received the due meed of his merits. Disappointed in his hope of being given the command of the Flag, he nursed at the bottom of his heart a secret hatred of his captain. But his temper had not escaped the vigilance of the boatswain, John Block, a fearless, reliable man devoted heart and soul to his chief.

The crew of the Flag, mustering some score of men, was not of the first-class, as Captain Gould very well knew. The boatswain noticed with disapproval the indulgence too often shown by Robert Borupt to some of the sailors, when fault should have been found with them for neglect of duty. He thought that all this was suspicious, and he watched the second officer, fully determined to give Captain Gould warning, if needful.

Nothing of note happened between the 22nd of August and the 9th of September. The condition of the sea and the direction of the wind were alike favourable to the ship’s progress, though the breeze was a shade too light. If the three-master were able to maintain the same rate of progress she would reach New Switzerland waters about the middle of October, within the time anticipated.

But about this time the crew began to manifest symptoms of insubordination. It even looked as though the second and third officers, in defiance of every sense of duty, connived at this relaxing of discipline. Robert Borupt, influenced by his own jealous and perverse nature, took no steps to check the disorder.

But the Flag continued to make her way north-east. On the 9th of September she was almost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, on the line of the Tropic of Capricorn, her position being 20° 17′ latitude and 80° 45′ longitude.

During the course of the previous night symptoms of bad weather had appeared—a sudden fall of the barometer and a gathering of storm clouds, both signs of the formidable hurricanes that too often lash these seas to fury.

About three o’clock in the afternoon a squall got up so suddenly that it almost caught the ship—a serious matter for a vessel which, heeled over to one side, cannot answer to her rudder and is in danger of not being brought up again unless her rigging is cut away. If that is done, she is disabled, incapable of offering any resistance to the waves while lying to, and is at the mercy of the ocean’s fury.

As soon as this storm broke the passengers had, of course, been obliged to keep their cabins, for the deck was swept by tremendous seas. Only Fritz and Frank stayed on deck to lend a hand with the crew.

Captain Gould took the watch at the outset, and the boatswain was at the wheel, while the second and third officers were on duty in the forecastle. The crew were at their posts, ready to obey the captain’s orders, for it was a matter of life and death. The slightest mistake in the handling of her, while the seas were breaking over the Flag as she lay half over on the port side, might have meant the end. Every effort must be made to get her up again, and then to trim her sails so as to bring her head on to the squall.

And yet the mistake was made, not deliberately perhaps, for the ship ran the risk of foundering through it, but certainly through some misunderstanding of the captain’s orders, of which an officer ought not to have been capable, if he possessed any of the instincts of a sailor.

Robert Borupt, the second officer, alone was to blame. The foretopsail, trimmed at a wrong moment, drove the ship still farther over, and a tremendous lump of water crashed over the taffrail.

“That cursed Borupt wants to sink us!” cried Captain Gould.

“He has done it!” the boatswain answered, trying to shove the tiller to starboard.

The captain leaped to the deck and made his way forward at the risk of being swept back by the water. After a desperate struggle he reached the forecastle.

“Get to your cabin!” he shouted in a voice of wrath to the second officer; “get to your cabin, and stop there!”

Borupt’s blunder was so patent that not one of the crew dared to protest, although they were all ready to stand by him if he had given them the word. He obeyed, however, and went back to the poop.

What was possible to do, Captain Gould did. He trimmed all the canvas that the Flag could carry, and succeeded in bringing her up without being obliged to cut away the rigging. The ship no longer lay broadside on to the sea.

For three consecutive days they had run before the storm in constant peril. During almost the whole of that time Susan and Jenny and Dolly were obliged to keep to their cabins, while Fritz, Frank, and James Wolston helped in the various operations.

At last, on the 13th of September, an abatement of the storm came. The wind dropped, and although the sea did not immediately drop too, at last the waves no longer swept the deck of the Flag.

The ladies hurried eagerly out of their cabins. They knew what had taken place between the captain and the second officer, and why the latter had been removed from his post. Robert Borupt’s fate would be decided by a naval court when they got back.

For three days they had run before the storm.

There was much damage to the canvas to be made good, and John Block, who was in charge of this work, saw quite clearly that the crew were on the verge of mutiny.

This state of things could not be lost upon Fritz, or Frank, or James Wolston, and it filled them with more uneasiness than the storm had caused them. Captain Gould would not shrink from the severest measures against the mutineers. But was he not too late?

During the following week there was no actual breach of discipline. As the Flag had been carried some hundreds of miles to the east, she had to turn back to the west, in order to get into the longitude of New Switzerland.

On the 20th of September, about ten o’clock, much to the surprise of all, for he had not been released from arrest, Robert Borupt reappeared on the deck.

The passengers, who were all sitting together on the poop, had a presentiment that the situation, grave enough already, was about to become still more grave.

Directly Captain Gould saw the second officer coming forward he went up to him.

“Mr. Borupt,” he said, “you are under arrest. What are you doing here? Answer!”

“I will!” cried Borupt loudly. “And this is my answer!”

Turning to the crew, he shouted:

“Come on, mates!”

“Hurrah for Borupt!” sang from every part of the ship!

Captain Gould rushed down into his cabin and came back with a pistol in his hand. But he was not given time to use it. A shot, fired by one of the sailors round Borupt, wounded him in the head, and he fell into the boatswain’s arms.

Resistance was hopeless against an entire crew of mutineers, headed by the first and second officers. John Block, Fritz, Frank, and James Wolston, drawn up near Captain Gould tried in vain to maintain the struggle. In a moment they were overwhelmed by numbers, and ten sailors hustled them down to the spar-deck with the captain.

Jenny, Dolly, Susan, and the child were shut into their cabins, over which a guard was placed by order of Borupt, now ruler of the ship.

The situation of the prisoners in the semidarkness of the spar-deck, and of the wounded captain whose head could only be dressed with cold compresses, was a hard one. The boatswain was unfailing in his devotion to the captain.

Fritz and Frank and James Wolston were consumed by appalling anxiety. The three women were at the mercy of the mutineers of the Flag! The men suffered agony from the thought that they were powerless.

Several days passed. Twice a day, morning and evening, the hatch of the spar-deck was opened and the prisoners were given some food. To the questions that John Block asked them, the sailors only replied with brutal threats.

More than once did the boatswain and his companions try to force up the hatch and regain their liberty. But the hatch was guarded day and night, and even if they had succeeded in raising it, overpowering their guards, and getting up on deck, what chance would they have had against the crew, and what would have been the result?

“The brute! The brute!” said Fritz over and over again, as he thought of his wife and Susan and Dolly.

“Yes; the biggest rascal alive!” John Block declared. “If he doesn’t swing some day it will be because justice is dead!”

But if the mutineers were to be punished, and their ringleader given the treatment he deserved, a man-of-war must catch and seize the Flag. And Robert Borupt did not commit the blunder of going into waters where ships were numerous, and where he and his gang might have run the risk of being chased. He must have taken the ship far out of her proper course, most probably to the eastward, with the object of getting away alike from ships and the African and Australian shores.

Every day was adding a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, miles to the distance separating the Flag from the meridian of New Switzerland. Captain Gould and the boatswain could tell from the angle at which the ship heeled to port that she was making good speed. The creaking of the mast steps showed that the first officer was cramming on sail. When the Flag arrived in those distant waters of the Pacific Ocean where piracy was practicable, what would become of the prisoners? The mutineers would not be able to keep them; would they maroon them on some desert island? But anything would be better than to remain on board the ship, in the hands of Robert Borupt and his accomplices.

A week had passed since Harry Gould and his friends had been shut up on the spar-deck, without a word about the women. But on the 27th of September, it seemed as if the speed of the three-master had decreased, either because she was becalmed or because she was hove to.

About eight o’clock in the evening a squad of sailors came down to the captives.

These had no choice but to obey the order to follow him which the second officer gave them.

What was going on above? Was their liberty about to be restored to them? Or had a party been formed against Robert Borupt to restore Captain Gould to the command of the Flag?

When they were brought up on to the deck in front of all the crew, they saw Borupt waiting for them at the foot of the mainmast. Fritz and Frank cast a vain glance within the poop, the door of which was open. No lamp or lantern shed a gleam of light within.

But as they came up to the starboard nettings, the boatswain could see the top of a mast rocking against the side of the ship.

Evidently the ship’s boat had been lowered to the sea.

Was Borupt preparing, then, to put the captain and his friends aboard her and cast them adrift in these waters, abandoning them to all the perils of the sea, without the least idea whether they were near any land?

And the unfortunate women, too, were they to remain on board, exposed to such appalling danger?

At the thought that they would never see them more, Fritz and Frank and James determined to make a last attempt to set them free, though it should end in dying where they stood.

Fritz rushed to the side of the poop, calling Jenny. But he was stopped, as Frank was stopped, and James was stopped before he heard any answer from Susan to his call. They were overpowered at once, and despite resistance were lowered with Captain Gould and John Block over the nettings into the ship’s boat, which was fastened alongside the vessel by a knotted cable.

Their surprise and joy—yes, joy!—were inexpressible. The dear ones whom they had called in vain were in the boat already! The women had been lowered down a few minutes before the prisoners had left the spar-deck. They were waiting in mortal terror, not knowing whether their companions were to be cast adrift with them.

It seemed to them that to be reunited was the greatest grace that Heaven could have bestowed on them.

And yet what peril menaced them aboard this boat! Only four bags of biscuit and salt meat had been flung into it, with three casks of fresh water, a few cooking utensils, and a bundle of clothes and blankets taken at random from the cabins—a meagre supply at best.

But they were together! Death alone could separate them henceforward.

They were not given much time to reflect. In a few moments, with the freshening wind, the Flag would be several miles away.

The boatswain had taken his place at the tiller, and Fritz and Frank theirs at the foot of the mast, ready to hoist the sail directly the boat should be free from the shelter of the ship.

Captain Gould had been laid down under the forward deck. Jenny was ministering to him where he lay stretched out on the blankets, for he was unable to stand.

On the Flag the sailors were leaning over the nettings, looking on in silence. Not one of them felt a spark of pity for their victims. Their fierce eyes gleamed in the darkness.

Just at this moment a voice was raised—the voice of Captain Gould, to whom his indignation restored some strength. He struggled to his feet, dragged himself from bench to bench, and half stood up.

“You brutes!” he cried. “You shall not escape man’s justice!”