at Vancouver's Island. The pirate Rosco, and his barque, the
`Flame,' have become notorious since then, both for daring and
eccentricity, and I have been ordered to get hold of them, if possible.
Now, I mean to go to Sugar-loaf Island, because, from various things I
have heard of this scoundrel, I think it not unlikely that he will go
there."

"And you will let me go with you?" suddenly exclaimed Orlando, in a
voice of earnest entreaty.

"I will, my poor fellow," returned the captain; "but don't be too
sanguine; and let me advise you to say nothing of all this to your
mother."

"You are right. She must not know--at least not now. It will be the
first time in my life I have had a secret from my mother; but she must
not know till--till we return."

That night there was great rejoicing in Ratinga, because of the
recovery, if we may so call it, of Zariffa, and the visit of the British
man-of-war.

In the midst of the rejoicings a huge, lustrous pair of black eyes gazed
earnestly into Orlando's face, and an enormously thick pair of red lips
said, "I go too, massa--eh?"

"Well, you may, Ebony, if the captain will let you. He has already
agreed to take the missionary and the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee; but,
mind, not a whisper of our secret hope to any one."

Thus, with the approval of Madame Zeppa and Betsy Waroonga, these five
representatives of Ratinga embarked on board the British man-of-war, and
left the island.

CHAPTER FIVE.

We left the poor madman, Antonio Zeppa, wandering aimlessly up into the
mountains of Sugar-loaf Island. Whether it was the loss of his beloved
Orley alone that had turned his brain, or that loss coupled with the
injury to his head, we cannot tell, but certain it is that the outward
and visible violence of his great sorrow seemed to depart from him after
he had entered the rugged defiles of the mountain range. His mental
malady appeared to take the form of simple indifference and inactivity.
Sometimes he muttered to himself as he went slowly and wearily along,
but generally he was silent with his chin sunk upon his breast as he
gazed upon the ground with lack-lustre eyes.

At other times he started and looked around him with a sharp, inquiring,
almost timid, glance; but the gleam of memory--if such it was--soon
passed away, and his handsome face resumed the gentle, almost childish,
look which had settled down on it. But never again did he give vent to
the heart-broken cries