"Not another word," he said imperatively, and as obediently as a child I fell asleep.
A few days later I was able to sit up, and then I learnt that I had been unconscious for sixteen days, while anxiety for my condition had been largely responsible for Captain Jeremy's rapid recovery.
I knew the kindly Captain was burning with impatience to hear the story of my misadventures, but he refrained from questioning me for quite another week.
"Are you really sure you're not dreaming?" he asked, when, in the course of my narrative, I related how I had found my captors to be Ned Slater and the five other deserters.
"I would I had been," I replied. "Yet now I know, on the rogue's own statement, that he it was who slew my father."
"If I had only given heed to your suspicions!" returned Captain Jeremy grimly. "No matter, I'll lay them by the heels yet;" and at the conclusion of my story, to which both he and Captain 'Enery listened with the greatest interest, he expressed his intention of going ashore and making a descent upon the villains' retreat.
This he accordingly did, but, though the cave was discovered and a careful search made in and around the place, the rogues had vanished. I had often wondered how they managed to climb up from the mouth of the cavern to the top of the cliff. This Captain Jeremy explained. In the tunnel the searchers came across the trunk of a small tree which had apparently been thrust out a little way, so that by standing on it a man could climb up the perpendicular face of the precipice by means of a series of notches cut in the rock. This done, he fastened a stout rope round a projecting ledge, so that his companions could follow with ease. Beyond this the villains had left no trace save, on careful examination, a dark stain that was found on the dusty floor, thus bearing out my statement that I had accounted for one of them at least.
I progressed slowly yet surely, and meanwhile Captain Jeremy recovered his accustomed strength and health. At length, to the unbounded satisfaction of all hands, it was announced that, all preparations being completed, an expedition into the interior of the island would be made early in the following week.