to pick him up terminated the pursuit,
which had now become hopeless, and ten minutes later the _Flying Cloud_
glided past West Point and was rising and falling on the swell of the
open ocean.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE ARRIVAL HOME OF THE "FLYING CLOUD."

As soon as the ship was fairly clear of the harbour Ned kept her away on
a south-west by west course for the island on which the skipper and
Manners had been landed; and then, resolved to make the most of the fair
wind and the fine weather, he ran aloft and loosed the three topsails,
which, with a considerable amount of labour, and with the aid of the
winch and a snatch-block, he and Price actually succeeded in getting
sheeted home and mast-headed. The yards being laid square, the
adventurers had now nothing to do but to steer the ship, Sibylla
spending the greater part of the day at the wheel--thus affording her
companions an opportunity to snatch a little rest--whilst Ned and Price
alternately steered and kept the look-out through the night; and such
excellent progress did they make that at noon on the day but one
following that of their escape from Refuge Harbour, they had the
satisfaction of heaving-to the ship off the skipper's island. Here the
colours were hoisted and a gun was fired at frequent intervals, a keen
scrutiny of the island being maintained meanwhile with the aid of the
telescope, so that if the captain and Manners were still there they
might have an opportunity afforded them to paddle off to the ship, or at
least to signal their presence. Hour after hour passed away, however,
without any sign being discoverable of the existence of living beings
upon the island; and at length, just as the sun was setting, Ned once
more filled upon the ship and headed for Gaunt's island, shrewdly
surmising--what he afterwards found to be the truth--that the skipper
and Manners had found means to rejoin the passengers.

The mountain on Gaunt's island was made about three o'clock next
morning, from the deck of the _Flying Cloud_, the atmosphere being
somewhat hazy at the time; and daybreak found the ship off the north-
eastern extremity of the island, some two miles distant, when the
colours were again hoisted and guns fired as before, the reports
serving, as has already been seen, to greatly disconcert the Malays and
expedite their departure.

The first thing seen by the anxious watchers on the ship's deck was the
proa crowding sail out of the harbour, a si