as old clothes in
their present condition struck the imaginative mind of Mr Button, and
he proceeded to search.

The lazarette was simply a cistern full of sea water; what else it
might contain, not being a diver, he could not say. In the copper of
the caboose lay a great lump of putrifying pork or meat of some sort.
The harness cask contained nothing except huge crystals of salt. All
the meat had been taken away. Still, the provisions and water brought
on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days
or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen.

Mr Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig
like a duckling beside a duck; the broad channel might have been
likened to the duck's wing half extended. He got on the channel to see
if the painter was safely attached. Having made all secure, he climbed
slowly up to the main-yard arm, and looked round upon the sea.

CHAPTER IX

SHADOWS IN THE MOONLIGHT

"Daddy's a long time coming," said Dick all of a sudden.

They were seated on the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the
brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting
over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold.
Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if
troubled by fervent heat.

"Ay, is he," said Mr Button; "but it's better late than never. Now
don't be thinkin' of him, for that won't bring him. Look at the sun
goin' into the wather, and don't be spakin' a word, now, but listen and
you'll hear it hiss."

The children gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were mute as the
great blazing shield touched the water that leapt to meet it.

You COULD hear the water hiss--if you had imagination enough. Once
having touched the water, the sun went down behind it, as swiftly as a
man in a hurry going down a ladder. As he vanished a ghostly and golden
twilight spread over the sea, a light exquisite but immensely forlorn.
Then the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened as if to a
closing door, and the stars rushed over the sky.

"Mr Button," said Emmeline, nodding towards the sun as he vanished,
"where's over there?"

"The west," replied he, staring at the sunset. "Chainy and Injee and
all away beyant."

"Where's the sun gone to now, Paddy?" asked Dick.

"He's gone chasin' the moon, an' she's skedadlin' wid her dress brailed
up for all she's worth; she'll