“Shall I send a bullet into him?”
“If you do, the captain will skin you alive,” was the reply from one of the other men.
The alternative did not seem agreeable to the first speaker, for he laid down his musket, and resumed his oar.
Soon after the boat reached her, the sails of the stranger were spread, and she glided slowly out of the lagoon.
Chapter Four.
Let us waft ourselves away, now, over the sea, in pursuit of the strange barque which had treated the good people of Ratinga so cavalierly.
Richard Rosco sits in the cabin of the vessel, for it is he who commands her. He had taken her as a prize, and, finding her a good vessel in all respects, had adopted her in preference to the old piratical-looking schooner. A seaman stands before him.
“It is impossible, I tell you,” says Rosco, while a troubled expression crosses his features, which have not improved since we saw him upwards of three years ago. “The distance between the two islands is so great that it is not probable he traversed it in a canoe, especially when we consider that he did not know the island’s name or position, and was raving mad when I put him ashore.”