door.

"Everything all right, Mr. Frewen?" inquired Raymond.

"Everything. All the gentry up for'ard are bussed up comfortably like
fowls for cooking. No one has been hurt; Malie's men simply picked the
mongrels up by the scruff of their necks and then tied them up. The ship
is ours."

"Then you are in command, Mr. Frewen. Please give your orders."

"Very well, Mr. Raymond. But first let me see to the distinguished Senor
Almanza."

He opened the door of Almanza's stateroom. The Chilian was asleep.
Frewen was about to touch and awaken him but pity for a badly wounded
man predominated, so he let him lie undisturbed.

"Now, Mr. Raymond, I am at your service. Will you ask Malie to man his
boats, and we will start towing again."

"With pleasure. But let us first call our good men together and drink
success to ourselves and the _Esmeralda_. And then, whilst we are being
towed towards Samatau, we can overhaul poor Captain Marston's cabin. All
the specie, so this scoundrel tells me"--and he pointed to the Chileno
steward--"is still in a safe in the captain's cabin, and has not yet
been touched. But it was to be divided to-morrow."

And then Randall Cheyne sprang on deck and shouted out in Samoan--

"Friends, the ship is ours! Let ten men remain on board to guard these
murderers, and the rest take to the boats and tow the ship to Samatau."

The willing natives answered him with a loud "Ave!" and ten minutes
later the _Esmeralda_ was again moving through the water.

An hour before daylight her cable rattled through her hawse-pipe, and
she swung quietly to her anchor in Samatau Bay.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK II

CHAPTER XII

Twelve months had come and gone, and Frewen, now "Captain" Frewen, was
seated in the office of Ramon Mercado, the Valparaiso agent of the late
captain and owner of the _Esmeralda_, which had arrived in port the
previous day.

The worthy merchant--a little stout man with merry, twinkling eyes--was
listening to the detailed story of the capture of the ship by the
mutineers, her subsequent recapture, and of all that had occurred since
she had been brought to an anchor in front of Raymond's house in Samatau
Bay. Mercado himself, four months previously, had received a letter from
Mrs. Marston, acquainting him with what had occurred up to the time of
her husband's death, and telling him that the _Esmeralda_, as soon as a
crew could be obtained, would sail under Frewen's command for Mani