een, and
would have stood to the captain and officers like a man, but I was made
prisoner by the mutineers early in the fight. After the row was over,
Mr. Fullerton missed his watch and a hundred sovereigns which were in
a writing case in his cabin. He accused me of stealing them, and when
I hotly denied the charge, knocked me down on deck and kicked me so
savagely in the face that I should have been killed if I had not been
dragged away from him. As it was, he broke my jaw and destroyed my left
eye. But that was not all. When he reached Sydney he charged me with
the theft. I got a heavy sentence and was sent to the coal-mines at
Newcastle; but after two years of hell I escaped by stowing away in a
Dutch barque bound to Samarang. And now _my_ turn has come."

"Are you sure he is the man?" asked the American.

"Quite. He settled in the Colony and married there. I have heard of him
from time to time for many years."

* * * * *

Before midnight the three white men, with twenty-five of their native
followers armed with muskets and cutlasses, were following the coastline
in the direction of Gape Stephens. The night was dark and rainy, but the
route was familiar to both Adams and Stenhouse. All night they marched
steadily onward, and only when daylight broke did they halt on the banks
of a stream to rest and eat. Then, crossing the stream, they struck a
native path which led to the shore.

"There she is," said Ford.

The ship lay about a mile from the shore. Stenhouse looked at her
earnestly, and then abruptly told his comrades his plans, which were
daring but simple. He would await the landing of the boat bringing the
dead men ashore for burial, and take them prisoners. In all probability
the captain would be in charge, and it was Stenhouse's intention to hold
him and his boat's crew as ransom for the man he wanted. He intended
no harm to them, but was determined to achieve his object if he had
to carry his prisoners off to the mountains, and keep them there till
Fullerton was given up to him.

Immediately after breakfast, the watchers saw two boats leave the ship,
and pull in towards a creek which debouched into a sandy cove situated
immediately under Gape Stephens. The coastline here was uninhabited,
and except for the banks of the creek, which were heavily timbered,
presented a succession of rolling, grassy downs, and here and there
clumps of _vi_ (wild mango) and ceda