f."

Returning to the house he sought out his wife.

"Marie, we are going to recapture that ship. Don't be alarmed, and don't
say anything to poor Mrs. Marston till you see us returning; but you may
tell the mate."

Mrs. Raymond never for one instant thought of trying to dissuade her
husband from a mission which she felt was full of danger. She kissed
him, and said, "Tell me what to get ready, Tom."

CHAPTER VII

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and the decks of the _Esmeralda_
gleamed dazzlingly white under the burning rays of the Samoan sun, as
she lay motionless upon a sea as calm as some sheltered mountain lake
or reed-margined swamp hidden away in the quiet depths of the primeval
forest. Twenty miles away to the south and east of the ship, the
purple-grey crests of the mountains of Savai'i rose nearly five thousand
feet in air, and, nearer the long verdant slope of beautiful Upolu
stretched softly and gently upwards from the white beaches of the
western point to the forest-clad sides of Mount Tofoa--ten miles
distant. Still nearer to the ship, and shining like a giant emerald
lying within a circlet of snow, was the island of Manono, the home or
birthplace of all the chiefly families of Samoa for many centuries
back. Almost circular in shape, and in no place more than fifty feet
in height, it was covered with an ever-verdant forest of breadfruit,
pandanus, orange and palm-groves, broken here and there by the
russet-hued villages of the natives, built just where the shining beach
met the green of the land. And the whole seemed to float on the bosom of
the lagoon, which, completely encompassed by the barrier reef, slumbered
peacefully--its waters undisturbed except when they moved responsive to
the gently-flowing current from the blue ocean beyond, or were rippled
by the paddle of a fisherman's canoe. A mile beyond Manono, and midway
between it and the "iron-bound" coast of Savai'i, was the little
volcanic isle of Apolima--once in olden times the fortress that guarded
the passage through the straits, now occupied only by a few families of
fisher-folk dwelling in peace and plenty in the village nestling at the
foot of the long-extinct volcano. Overhead a sky of wondrous spotless
blue.

* * * * *

On the quarter-deck of the _Esmeralda_ three of the mutineers were
seated together under the shade of a small temporary awning, engaged
in