Needless to say, it all ends
happily, with various marriages, and with the intention of getting back
to the Pirate Island, to see if it has survived the eruption, and if so,
if the gold can be mined.

It makes a very good audiobook, that is very gripping, especially at the
point where the original discovery of the gold is made.
________________________________________________________________________
THE PIRATE ISLAND
A STORY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

A STORY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE WRECK ON THE "GUNFLEET."

It was emphatically "a dirty night." The barometer had been slowly but
persistently falling during the two previous days; the dawn had been red
and threatening, with a strong breeze from S.E.; and as the short dreary
November day waxed and waned this strong breeze had steadily increased
in strength until by nightfall it had become a regular "November gale,"
with frequent squalls of arrowy rain and sleet, which, impelled by the
furious gusts, smote and stung like hail, and cleared the streets almost
as effectually as a volley of musketry would have done.

It was not fit for a dog to be out of doors. So said Ned Anger as he
entered the snug bar-parlour of the "Anchor" at Brightlingsea, and
drawing a chair close up to the blazing fire of wreck-wood which roared
up the ample chimney, flung himself heavily down thereon to await the
arrival of the "pint" which he had ordered as he passed the bar.

"And yet there's a many poor souls as _has_ to be out in it, and as _is_
out in it," returned the buxom hostess, entering at the moment with the
aforesaid pint upon a small tray. "It's to be hoped as none of 'em
won't meet their deaths out there among the sands this fearful night,"
she added, as Ned took the glass from her, and deposited his "tuppence"
in the tray in payment therefor.

A sympathetic murmur of concurrence went round the room in response to
this philanthropic wish, accompanied in some instances by doubtful
shakes of the head.

"Ay, ay, we all hope that," remarked Dick Bird--"Dicky Bird" was the
name which had been playfully bestowed upon him by his chums, and by
which he was generally known--"we all hopes that; but I, for one, feels
uncommon duberous about it. There's hardly a capful of wind as blows
but what some poor unfort'nate craft leaves her bones out there,"--with
a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder to seaward,--"and mostly with
every wreck there's