ertained the men, during the remainder of the
voyage, with stories of our adventures, first on the island, and
afterwards on the reef. But a timely hint from Gurney, terse and
strong, kept his lips closed upon the subject of the pearls, of the
existence of which on board not a man of the schooner's crew ever became
aware.

There is but little more that need be said in order to bring this story
of a very remarkable and adventurous voyage to a close. The schooner
continued to blaze fiercely--the flames fanned to ever-increasing fury
by the strength of the wind--for about half an hour after we had run
past her, when we suddenly lost sight of her; Thomson's opinion being
that by that time her upper works had been completely consumed, and that
the sea had gained access to her interior, sending her charred remains
to the bottom. True, the tail of the squall brought along a smart
shower of rain that lasted about ten minutes, but it was over again
before she disappeared, so that the alternative theory of Brady, her
boatswain, that the rain extinguished the flames, found little
acceptance with us. In any case it was not worth while returning to
seek her, for, even had she been found, she could but have been a mere
burnt-out shell, of no value to anyone. The squall blew itself out in
about twenty minutes; but the wind continued to blow strongly all
through the night, and it was not until sunrise on the following morning
that the weather moderated sufficiently to induce Gurney to send the
hands aloft to turn out the reefs and make sail. When I went on deck,
however, at seven bells, it was glorious weather; the sky clear, save
for a few light fleecy clouds drifting solemnly along out of the north-
west, a moderate sea running, and the ship bowling gaily along under all
plain sail and her starboard studding sails--a sight which I had not
gazed upon for many a long day. We crossed the Equator during the
forenoon of that day and, meeting with favourable weather for the
remainder of the voyage, entered Port Jackson, without further
adventure, some three weeks later, coming to an anchor close to Garden
Island.

The arrival of the _Mercury_, so long overdue that she had been given up
as lost, created quite a little local sensation, which was vastly
increased when the history of the voyage was made public, to such an
extent, indeed, that a Government ship was dispatched to the island with
authority to arrest Wilde, Polson, and Tu