bserved him change colour; a perplexed
expression passed over his face, his hand trembled. For two long
minutes he remained steadfastly peering through the telescope; then he
suddenly closed it with a snap, and exclaimed excitedly:

"Away to the punt and pull out to sea for your life, Nicholls. It is
the dear old _Cloud_, as I am a living sinner! and Miss Stanhope is on
the poop watching the island through the ship's glass. There goes
another gun!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A DARING PLAN SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTED.

In accordance with Williams' plans the _Flying Cloud's_ cargo was in due
time discharged and warehoused on shore in the newly-built stores; the
ship herself stripped, hove down, scrubbed, and re-painted from her keel
up; her interior re-arranged--particularly the forecastle, which was
extended sufficiently to accommodate a hundred men; the upper spars
replaced by new ones, somewhat higher in the hoist, cut on the island;
her canvas altered to fit the new spars, skysails being abolished as
causing more trouble than they were worth; the running-gear re-arranged;
the deck-houses, with the exception of the poop, swept away; the
bulwarks strengthened and pierced; the breech-loading guns, twelve in
number, mounted on carriages and placed in position; and, generally, the
ship made to look as much like a man-of-war as possible, though she as
much resembled the old-fashioned sailing sloop which then still
performed duty on our more distant stations as a swan does a goose, her
sailing powers far exceeding those of the fastest of them, whilst
Williams' metamorphosis of her only had the effect of imparting to her
an extremely rakish and wicked appearance.

In due time--and not a very long time either, taking into consideration
the amount of work done--the ship was once more ready for sea; and
ballasted carefully down to her very best sailing trim, she left Refuge
Harbour for an extended piratical cruise. It is not necessary to
describe in detail where she went, or the various adventures met with by
her crew; suffice it to say that the cruise proved wonderfully
successful, several very valuable prizes being taken--no less than three
being vessels with large amounts of specie on board. When Williams
first mooted to the crew his proposal to seize the ship and convert her
into a pirate, he met the strongest objection raised by the more
scrupulous of the men by asserting that he had a plan whereby all
bloodshed could be av