your canvas," he
commanded; "and we will be off to the barque and settle this business
forthwith. I will explain my plans to you as we go."

With the cutter no longer sailing alongside her, the catamaran once more
took rank as a fast-sailing and weatherly craft, and soon worked out to
the spot where the _Minerva_ rode at anchor. Dick, of course, by this
time knew the curious craft well, and handled her with such consummate
judgment that when at length he luffed her into the wind's eye and
ordered her sails to be lowered, she just handsomely slid up alongside
the barque and came to a standstill abreast her starboard gangway.

"Look out there and catch a turn with this 'ere painter," exclaimed
Simpson, tossing a rope's-end to a couple of men who peered down from
the _Minerva's_ bulwarks upon the catamaran and her crew with mingled
astonishment and dismay; and at the same moment Leslie and Nicholls made
a spring for the barque's side-ladder, and, shinning up it, tumbled in
on deck to the further discomfiture of the two men aforesaid, leaving
Simpson to follow, which he promptly did. The whole thing was done so
smartly that the only two visible members of the barque's crew--who
seemed to be quite slow-moving and slow-thinking men--were completely
taken by surprise, and evidently knew not what to make of it.

Meanwhile Leslie, with a single glance about the ship's deserted decks,
seemed to grasp the situation intuitively.

"Are you two men named Royston and Hampton?" he demanded.

"Ay, ay, sir; that's us, sure enough," answered one of the two, with a
visible appearance of relief for some reason best known to himself.

"Unbuckle your belts and throw them down on deck," commanded Dick,
quietly drawing a brace of revolvers somewhat ostentatiously from his
side-pockets.

"What for?" demanded one of the fellows. "Who be you, mister, to come
aboard here and order--"

"Come, no nonsense," interrupted Leslie, sternly. "You will do exactly
what I order you to do, at once, and without hesitation, or it will be
the worse for you. You understand?" And he levelled a pistol at the
head of each man.

Thus gently persuaded, the two men grumblingly did as they were told.
And when the discarded belts were flung savagely to the deck, it was
seen that attached to each was a formidable sheath-knife.

"That's right," commented Nicholls, as he stepped forward, also with a
brace of revolvers in his hands, and with a kick swept th