e full steam ahead to 'Frisco, and from
there a cable to Kenrick Bellenden, and the plain intimation that his
sister has pretty bad need of him on Ken's Island."

"And of an American warship, if one is forthcoming."

"It may be, Mister Jacob; it may be that, though the devils ashore
there are the only ones that could tell you that. But you're a man of
understanding, and your part will be done. I rely upon you as between
shipmates."

He took a pinch of snuff, and flapping his coat-tails (for he was
always rigged out in the naval officer way) he answered what I wished.

"As between shipmates, I will do my duty," said he.

"I knew it; I've known it from the beginning," said I. "What's left
when you've done is the shore part, and that's not so easy. Peter
Bligh's coming, and I couldn't well leave Dolly on board. Give me our
hulking carpenter, Seth Barker, and I'll lighten the ship no more.
We're short-handed as it is. And, besides, if four won't serve, then
forty would be no better. What we can do yonder, wits, and not
revolvers, must bring about. But I'll not go with sugar-sticks, you
take my word for it, and any man that points a gun at me will wish he'd
gone shooting sheep."

"Aye, aye, to that," cried Peter, who was ever a man for a fight; "the
shooting first and the civil words after. That's sense and no blarney.
When my poor father was tried at Swansea, his native place, for hitting
an Excise man with a ham----"

"Mr. Bligh," cried I, "'tis not with hams you'll be hitting folks
yonder, take my word for it. This job may find us on a child's errand
or it may find us doing men's work. Eight bells on the first watch will
tell the whole of the story. Until that time I shall hold my tongue
about it, but I don't go ashore as I go to a picnic, and I don't make a
boast about what I may presently cry out about."

Well, they were both of my way of thinking, and when we'd talked a
little more about it, and I'd opened the arm-chest and looked over the
few guns and pistols we'd got there, and we'd called the lad Dolly down
and promised him that he should come with us, and the men had been
given to understand that the skipper was to go ashore by-and-bye on an
important business, Peter and the others went to their dinner and I
took my turn on the bridge. The swell was running strongly then, and
the wind blew fresh from the north-east. We'd lost all sight of the
island, and spoke but one ship, a small mail steamer from Santa