haar? Flinders an' I brought 'em down
to the beach last night when ye wer all caulkin'; an' I guess ye air
pretty well chiselled at last!--Thet's quits fur the nigger's ghost, an'
yer mutiny, an' all! I reckon I've paid ye all out in full, ye durned
skellywags!"

Those were the last words, in all human probability, that Captain Snaggs
ever uttered in this mortal life.

There had been slight rumblings underground all the morning of that day,
as if nature were warning us of further volcanic disturbance throughout
the Galapagian archipelago; and now, of a sudden, an immense tidal wave,
that seemed sixty feet high at the least, rolled into the little harbour
like a huge wall, filling up the opening between the cliffs on either
hand up to the very tops of these, as it came sweeping inward from the
outside sea.

The next instant, the _Denver City_, with all on board her, disappeared,
the wave sweeping back outwards with its prey, leaving the bottom of the
harbour bare for over a mile, where all previously had been deep water.

The sea came back once more, though the tidal wave was not so high as
before.

And still once again--ebb and flow, ebb and flow.

It was awful!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

RESCUED.

We five--Jan Steenbock, Tom Bullover, Hiram, Sam Jedfoot, and lastly,
though by no means least, myself--sole, solitary survivors of the awful
catastrophe that had swallowed up our comrades, stood on the cliff above
the yawning chasm, watching the tidal wave that still ebbed and flowed
in diminishing volume at each reflux.

This it continued to do for a full half-hour afterwards, when the sea
returned to its normal state, welling up tranquilly on the beach, and
quickly washing away all traces of the recent convulsion of nature, as
if nothing had happened--a sort of sobbing moan, only, seemed afterwards
to come from the water every now and then at spasmodic intervals, as if
the spirits of the deep were lamenting over the mischief and destruction
they had wrought!

Scarcely could we believe our eyes; for, while not a single plank or
piece of timber was cast ashore of the ship, which must have been taken
down bodily by the remorseless wave that had hurried our cruel captain
and no less cruel mate, and the rest of the crew, nineteen souls in all,
into eternity, without the slightest forewarning of their doom, the
little bay now looked as quiet and peaceful as of yore, with its
outstretching capes on either hand, a