will in the great Pacific, we had scarce seen that great rim of the
East lift itself above the sparkling water when all the scene was
opened to us, the picture of ships and water and wave-washed reef made
clear as in some scene of stageland. As with one tongue, realizing a
mighty truth, we cried, "The ship is gone; the ship has sailed!"

It was true, all true. Where at sundown there had been a yacht anchored
in the offing, now at daybreak no yacht was to be seen. Darkness, which
had been the ally of Czerny's men, had helped the man himself to flee
from them to an unknown haven where their vengeance should not reach
him. By night had he fled, and by day would he mock his creatures.
Drifting there in the open boats, the rising seas beginning to wash in
upon them, hunger and thirst their portion, the rebels were at no pains
to hide their secret from us. We knew that they had been called back by
these overwhelming tidings of the master-trick, and we asked what heart
the rogues would have now to sell their lives for the man who betrayed
them? Would they not look to us for the satisfaction the chief rogue
denied to them? We, as they, were left helpless in that woful place.
Before us, as before them, lay the peril of hunger and of thirst, the
death-sleep or the greater mercy. And who should ask them to accept it
without a last supreme attempt, a final assault, which should mend all
or end all? Driven to the last point, to the last point would they go
to grasp that foothold of the seas and to drive us from the rock
whereon life might yet be had.

"Lads," I said, "the story is there as the man has written it. We have
no quarrel with yon poor devils nor they with us; but they will find
one. We cannot help them; they cannot help us. We'll wait for the
end--just wait for it."

I spoke with a confidence which time did not justify. Just as the dawn
had put new life into us, so it had steeled the hearts of this derelict
crew and nerved it for any desperate act. For long we watched the
rogues rowing hither, thither; now in the island's shadows, now coming
towards us, but never once raising a rifle or uttering a threat. In the
end they came all together, waving a sail upon a pole; and while they
appeared to row for the lesser gate they accompanied the act with soft
words and a protest of their honesty.

"'Tis after a truce they are," says Peter Bligh, presently, "and that's
a poor thing, any-way. My poor father used to say, 'Knock '