ome
hours, till they learnt to handle their long gun with as much ease as
the carronades.

"Though we miss that mark sometimes, we shall manage to hit a larger one
without fail if it comes in our way, my lads!" he sang out, to encourage
the crew as they were working away at it during the morning.

After dinner the men were allowed some time to rest, and all was quiet.
An observation showed that the brig's position had not altered since the
previous noon.

"What do you make that out to be, Green?" asked Higson, the officer of
the watch, who had been looking through his telescope towards the shore.
Green turned his glass in the same direction.

"A boat! and she must be coming towards us," he answered, after the
delay of a minute or so.

Higson sent him to report the circumstance to the commander, who at once
came on deck. Various were the surmises as to what could bring the boat
off to them.

"She must have had a long pull of it, at all events," observed Higson.

"Perhaps she had the land wind, which we don't feel out here?" said
Green.

"Little doubt about that. She must have some urgent cause for coming
out thus far to us," remarked Murray. "Lower the gig, Mr Higson, and
go and meet her," he added immediately afterwards. "The people in the
boat are evidently tired with their long pull, and make but slow
progress."

The gig's crew called away--she was lowered, and Higson pulled off
towards the approaching boat. Meantime, Murray walked the deck with
impatient steps. Several times he stopped, and raised his glass to his
eye, watching her eagerly. At length he saw that the gig had reached
her. The two boats were alongside each other for a minute, and then the
gig came rowing rapidly back, leaving the other behind. Murray watched
her.

"There must be something of importance to make Higson hurry back at that
rate," he said to himself. "He has brought the people from the boat, I
see."

As the gig drew nearer, he saw Higson stand up and wave his
handkerchief. In a few minutes more she was near enough for him to
distinguish those in her.

"Is it possible, or do my eyes deceive me?" he exclaimed. "There's a
lad in a midshipman's uniform. If he is not Gerald Desmond, he is
wonderfully like him."

"There can be little doubt who he is, sir," said Green, who was standing
near his commander. "If that is not Desmond I'm a Dutchman, and the man
sitting just abaft the stroke-oar is Dick Needham, who went