d declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and,
taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the
dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The
slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block
and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the
vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from the licking
sea.

"You're all right now?" said Raft dubiously.

"Yes, I feel quite right and strong again--just a little dizzy, that's
all."

"Mind and don't tumble back down that hatch," said he, "I'll drop below
and see what's to be found if you keep your eye out for them Larrikens.
Give me a call if you sight them."

The Larrikens were nowhere to be seen; they were in the high ground
hidden, and no doubt holding a council of war, but sight or sound of
them there was none.

She nodded and he dropped below into the cabin.

The cabin of Chang was clean, almost dainty. Two smaller cabins opened
from it, one evidently for Chang and the other for his second in
command. Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a
rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an
ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the
lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a
shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of
biscuits.

He brought up the biscuits, the two revolvers and a pocketful of
ammunition and, taking his seat on the hatch edge beside the girl,
opened the tin; then he went forward and hunted for water, found the
water cask and, getting a tin pannikin from the galley, brought her a
drink.

He had never loaded or fired a revolver; the girl had, and she shewed
him how, the echoes of the cliffs answering to the ear splitting reports
as he made a few practice shots, and the guillemots squalling and rising
in clouds from their perches on the rock.

"We're fixed all right now," said he, "and we can have those chaps on
board when they're ready to come."

"On board!"

"Oh, they'll come right enough, they've got no grub on land."

"Come--but do you mean to say you will let them?"

"Who's to work the hooker out of the bay?" he answered, "Not you and me.
We've got to get them aboard. There's no harm in them now they're
licked."

He spoke with a knowledge of men absorbed from the whole world over. The
Chinese were licked and lik