h _you_, young gentleman, if I may presume
to ask?"

"Don't speak like that, Captain Blyth, I beg," protested Ned, deeply
hurt by the tone of suspicion in which the skipper's question had been
put. "I am just as helpless as yourselves in this matter. They have
determined to keep me on board to navigate the ship for them; and, with
a malignant ingenuity which would never have occurred to anybody but
Williams, they have also detained Miss Stanhope to act as hostage and
security for my fidelity and good behaviour, informing me that anything
like treachery, or even a mistake on my part, will be visited upon
_her_."

"Poor girl! poor girl!--and poor lad, too, for that matter!" ejaculated
the skipper. "Forgive me, Ned, if for a moment I fancied that you had
been led astray by those scoundrels and tempted to cast in your lot with
them. I might have known better; but this mutiny seems somehow to have
strained my mental faculties until sometimes I almost think they are
stranded and ready to carry away altogether. It is the first time that
anything of the kind ever happened to me; the first time. Ah, well!--
but I must not let these thoughts run away with me; our time together is
short, and I have one or two questions to ask you. And, first of all,
when and where did you land the passengers?"

"We landed them yesterday," answered Ned; "did you not know it? I
thought it would be quite impossible to keep that fact from your
knowledge."

"No, Ned, not quite impossible. I heard the boats lowered, and caught a
few words here and there, which gave me an idea of what was happening;
but we were shut up here with that surly fellow, Carrol, as guard over
us, and he would neither tell us anything nor allow us to so much as
glance out through the side-light to ascertain for ourselves what was
going on. So you landed them yesterday, eh?"

"Yes," said Ned; "on an island exactly one hundred miles due west of
us--"

"Stop a moment," interrupted the skipper; "let me make a mental note of
that. `One hundred miles due west of us;' that is to say, one hundred
miles due west of the island where we are going to be landed. Is that
it?"

Ned nodded.

"Very well," continued the skipper, "I shall remember that. Do you
think you can bear that in mind, Mr Manners?"

"Certainly, sir," answered Manners. "That is an easy thing to
remember."

"Very well," said his superior. "Now go on, Ned, and tell us what the
island is like."