that night, and therefore came to a grapnel in three fathoms water, under the lee of a rock which was just awash with the surface of the

sea.

Here they lay tolerably quiet all night, and, as soon as it was daylight, they mounted one of the boys on the low mast of the pinnace to con them through the broken water. In their progress during the day, they struck severely three or four times, but by night had got so far from the island that the heads of the cocoa-nut trees around the fort were even with the water-line; still, there were spots of broken water outside of them, where the sea ran rather high.

To avoid the inconvenience of this, Fitz lashed the spare spars with a bridle of some fathoms long, and attached to the bight of it, a small grapnel, which kept the spars in place and broke the sea; and, on the whole being launched overboard, the spars were thus secured, and serving as a rough kind of breakwater, Fitzjohn then brought up with the long-boat's grapnel, in seven fathoms water, and made each boat besides drop its own grapnel under foot.

Before leaving the island, our hero had taken the precaution of having deep tarpaulin washboards fitted to the bows and sterns of the boats; they now, therefore, shipped little or no water, and the next day stood fairly out to sea. Just as they were losing sight of the higher parts of the island, they observed a very thick smoke to arise, which Fitzjohn did not doubt to be the furze stack fired: but whether by accident or to make known a sail in sight, it was impossible to decide.

Scarcely had this surmise arisen when Fitzjohn easily perceived that the inclination amongst his men was to return and inquire into its truth, but he soon put a stop to all thoughts of that kind, by cutting adrift the empty quarter casks under the long-boat's quarters, and getting her under sail.

After having been five days under weigh, and all the time wet through, from those heavy tropical rains, against which they had no other resource than that of taking off their wet clothes, wringing them out, and putting them on again, many of the men began to be sickly, a disaster

not mended by the imperfect mode of cooking their live stock, the fire for which purpose was made in a bucket of sand in the midships of the long-boat. Such being the case, Fitz decided on keeping the remainder, consisting of one sheep and five fowls, for the sick list.

As all the boats kept in tow of each other with double painters, bow and quarter, they were obliged to keep the sails two points from the wind, but never made more than four knots an hour. During the intervals of the pouring rains, the sun came out burning hot, which gave them all the ague. On the nineteenth day after leaving the land, poor Billy, the last sheep, was put to death.

From the heat of the weather, they were obliged to tow overboard the part that was not required for cooking, and, as they did not trust all to one line, they made fast some parts to the bow as well as from the quarter: lucky it was they took this precaution, for, during the night, a shark came and took away a whole leg, which was towing astern, with the exception of the shank-bone, secured by the tow-rope.

On the twenty-first morning, being in the Mozambique Channel, they observed a sail at a distance, and, as the stranger was standing towards our friends, and they towards the stranger, they neared each other very fast, and, in about two hours, Fitz made out the other to be as large as one of our East India ships, which they sincerely hoped might be the case, knowing the kindness and hospitality of the excellent officers who commanded them.

CHAPTER VII.

"We are not all deserted on the main,
It is! It is my own red flag again!"

CORSAIR.

As the strange sail on which the hopes of so many depended was, when first seen, end on by the wind, on the larboard tack, and our hero's boats rather off the wind on the starboard tack, they could just discover the red fly of an ensign, and some main-deck guns, the muzzles of many of which, were cocking up at an angle of fortyfive degrees, while those of others were as much depressed. They observed, also, that they were of different lengths, to the great joy of the men, who then felt certain that the vessel in sight was not a British man-of-war.