n, but
not a sign of a sail could they discover. The pirate schooner had
disappeared as completely as though she had never been in the harbor at
all.

"Come about, Mr. Jackson," said Harry, as calmly as though the long line
of foaming, hissing breakers before him had been a mile away, instead of
almost under the vessel's bows. His mind was so fully engrossed with the
mysterious disappearance of the schooner, that he could think of nothing
else. Where could she have gone? was a question he asked himself more
than once while the Storm King was coming about. She could not have
slipped by him, dark as it was, for there had been too many pairs of
sharp eyes looking out for that. She could not have gone over the
island, and she might as well have tried that as to attempt the passage
of the shoals. She certainly had not been dashed in pieces on the rocks,
for, in that case, he would have heard the noise of the collision and
the cries of the crew, and, besides, he would have seen the wreck. Harry
did not know what to make of it.

"Wheeler," said he, turning to the boatswain's mate, who happened to be
standing near him, "what do you think of this?"

"Well, sir," replied the young tar, touching his cap and hitching up his
trowsers, "I was just wondering if it _was_ a schooner at all. She may
be a small edition of the Flying Dutchman, sir."

If Harry had been superstitious he would have thought so too. The
schooner's disappearance was so mysterious, so sudden, so unexpected!
Just at the moment when the crew of the Storm King were waiting for the
order to board her, she had vanished, and no one could tell where she
had gone. The first lieutenant knew many an old sailor who, had he been
on board the yacht at that moment, would have solemnly affirmed that
they had been pursuing a phantom.

CHAPTER XV.

TOM HAS ANOTHER IDEA.

"Yes, sir," repeated the governor of the Crusoe band, in a tone of great
satisfaction, "we're off fur our island at last. Them spooneys will
never trouble you any more, cap'n. You're safe from Johnny Harding, an'
I'm safe from Mr. Grimes, Bobby Jennings, an' all the rest of 'em.
Hurrah fur us!"

Tom stood leaning over the schooner's rail, watching the Storm King,
which was rapidly fading from his view, and thinking, not of Johnny
Harding, but of the failure of his grand idea. He would not have been
greatly disappointed if he had known that he should never see Crusoe's
island. He had, of course,