nd I will look after the felucca whilst
you are away in the boat."

"To be sure we will," said Courtenay, with a quiet wink at me; and
springing aft to the tiller, he laid his hand upon it, saying to the man
who held it:

"Away with you, Jose, my fine fellow, into the boat, and lend a hand to
secure that turtle; it is not every day we sailors get such a chance."

Meanwhile, the rest of us unshipped the lee gangway, and getting the
boat athwart the deck, sent her stern first overboard with a splash
which I was in an agony of fear would awake the turtle, and so frustrate
the scheme which had darted into my brain--and Courtenay's also, I
fancied, by the knowing wink he had bestowed upon me--when it was
proposed to go away in the boat after the creature. But no; there he
was still, apparently fast asleep, rising and falling upon the surface
of the restless waters, his capacious shell glistening brightly as the
sunbeams flashed upon it.

The four men constituting the watch stepped as quietly as possible into
the boat, and, followed by Carera, took their places at the oar; Carera
standing up in the stern-sheets to look out for the quarry and to direct
his men how to pull. I was in a perfect fever of anxiety lest the
flapping of the sail and the bustle on deck should awaken the watch
below and bring them out of the forecastle to see what was the matter;
but seamen seldom pay any attention to these things, so far at least as
to leave their bunks in their watch below; and when at length the boat
shoved off and paddled gently round the felucca's quarter, Courtenay and
I found ourselves most unexpectedly in the very situation for which we
had so long been ineffectually scheming, namely, in undisputed
possession of the little craft's deck.

Without wasting a single moment in watching the progress of the boat, I
at once slipped forward, and, gently drawing over the slide of the fore-
scuttle, slipped the hasp over the staple, stuffed a few doubled-up
rope-yarns through the latter to keep the former in position, and then
quietly walked aft.

"Well, old boy," said I, as I joined Courtenay at the tiller, "the
felucca is ours; and that, too, without a single particle of all that
trouble which we anticipated. If we had planned the thing ever so
elaborately we could not have managed half so well. Up stick, my
hearty, fill on her; and hey for Port Royal, which I hope we shall see
to-morrow morning."

"Ay, ay," said Courtenay w