he kedge-line,
were gradually warping the brig down the harbour. Before dinner was
over a light breeze sprang up, and the Osprey, running up the union-jack
reversed, fired a musket, either in farewell or triumph, and, spreading
her sails, disappeared round the western horn of the harbour.

Mrs. Vickers, taking Sylvia with her, went away a few paces, and leaning
against the rugged wall of her future home, wept bitterly. Bates and
Frere affected cheerfulness, but each felt that he had hitherto regarded
the presence of the brig as a sort of safeguard, and had never fully
realized his own loneliness until now.

The necessity for work, however, admitted of no indulgence of vain
sorrow, and Bates setting the example, the pair worked so hard that by
nightfall they had torn down and dragged together sufficient brushwood
to complete Mrs. Vickers's hut. During the progress of this work they
were often interrupted by Grimes, who persisted in vague rushes at them,
exclaiming loudly against their supposed treachery in leaving him at the
mercy of the mutineers. Bates also complained of the pain caused by the
wound in his forehead, and that he was afflicted with a giddiness which
he knew not how to avert. By dint of frequently bathing his head at the
spring, however, he succeeded in keeping on his legs, until the work of
dragging together the boughs was completed, when he threw himself on the
ground, and declared that he could rise no more.

Frere applied to him the remedy that had been so successfully tried upon
Grimes, but the salt water inflamed his wound and rendered his condition
worse. Mrs. Vickers recommended that a little spirit and water should
be used to wash the cut, and the cask was got out and broached for that
purpose. Tea and damper formed their evening meal; and by the light of
a blazing fire, their condition looked less desperate. Mrs. Vickers
had set the pannikin on a flat stone, and dispensed the tea with an
affectation of dignity which would have been absurd had it not been
heart-rending. She had smoothed her hair and pinned the white shawl
about her coquettishly; she even ventured to lament to Mr. Frere that
she had not brought more clothes. Sylvia was in high spirits, and
scorned to confess hunger. When the tea had been drunk, she fetched
water from the spring in the kettle, and bathed Bates's head with it. It
was resolved that, on the morrow, a search should be made for some place
from which to cast the fishin