‘A chart, perhaps,’ said Tom.

‘How did this abandonment come about?’ exclaimed Mr. Bates. ‘Everything’s right aloft; I reckon the hull’s sound; she looks a staunch little craft. What drove the men out of her?’

‘Are they out of her?’ said Tom.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I once boarded an abandoned schooner when I was second mate,’ he answered; ‘she was deep with wheat. Everything was as right with her as it is with this brig. I looked into her forecastle and found five men dead on her deck, and in the cabin lay a sixth corpse. Bates, sailors hear and see so much that they soon forget to wonder and they never ask questions.’

‘True, Butler. A deal’s happened since yesterday. And I don’t see the end of the traverse yet.’

‘Marian,’ said Tom, ‘you are frightfully tired. Oh, Bates,’ he cried passionately, ‘think of what this lady has undergone for me and is still undergoing! So good, so loyal, so—so——’ His voice broke, he ceased, and I put my arm round his neck. ‘Dearest,’ he said, after a minute or two, ‘we’ll find a spare sail and make you a bed in that house there.’

‘I couldn’t sleep. Let me be with you till we are sure that all’s well.’

‘All is well.’

‘I’ll wait for daybreak,’ said I. ‘I want to know the convict ship’s out of sight.’