id so loudly that both Chard and captain
could hear, "Never fear, miss; compass or no compass, you are safer with
us than with those two." And as Tessa looked up into his face and smiled
her thanks to the sturdy young officer, Chard ground his teeth with
rage, though he tried to look unconcerned and indifferent.

"It's no use, Louis," he muttered, "we can do nothing now; time enough
later on. Give your orders, and don't look so infernally white about the
gills."

The taunt went home, and Hendry pulled himself together. The violence
with which he had been thrown down upon the deck the previous evening
by the angered mate, and his present passion combined had certainly, as
Chard said, made him look white about the gills.

"Very well, Miss Remington," he said, "if you refuse to come with me I
cannot help it. Mr. Oliver, is your boat compass all right?"

"Yes," was the curt answer.

"Then our course is north-north-west for Ponape. You, Mr. Atkins, as
you have no compass, had better keep close to me, as if we get a squally
night with heavy rain, which is very likely, we may lose sight of each
other. You, Mr. Oliver, can use your own judgment. We are now five
hundred miles from Ponape." Then, true seaman as he was, for all his
villainy, he ascertained what provisions were in Atkins's boat, told
him to put half into Oliver's, and also overhauled what was in his own.
There was an ample supply for two or three weeks, and of water there
were two breakers, one in his own the other in the second mate's boat.
That which had been in the mate's boat had been lost when she was rushed
by the firemen, and had hung stern down by the for'ard fall.

"I'll see that Mr. Oliver's boat has all the water she wants to-day,"
said Atkins. "She won't want any to-night. We'll get more than we shall
like. It'll rain like forty thousand cats."

Hendry nodded a sullen assent to this, and turned to take the steer-oar
from Huka, who, with the other native seamen, had been listening to the
discussion between the captain and his officers.

Huka gave up the oar, and then telling the other natives in their own
tongue to follow him, quietly slipped overboard, and swam towards the
second mate's boat. They leapt after him instantly.

Hendry whipped up one of the Winchesters, and was about to stand up and
fire at the swimming men when Chard tore the carbine from his grasp.

"Let them go, you blarsted fool! Let them go! It will be all the better
for us,