I

"'Tis our best chance," Ben said, as he dipped the quill into the captain's silver ink-pot. "Nay, 'tis our only chance."

The brig was labouring heavily on the sweeping swell of the North Atlantic. From where he sat, facing the square stern windows that looked out upon the helpless vessel's wake, Ben could see the dark, pursuing rollers as they loomed up against the lighter rack of leaden clouds. All was silent, terribly silent, on board. There was no sound now of busy seamen's voices, no measured tread of patrolling feet upon the decks; nothing but the slow, monotonous creaking of the ship's oaken timbers as she lazily slid into the furrow and buoyantly rose to mount the glassy slope of the next on-coming wave.

"Yes, 'tis our only chance," the boy repeated, as he drew towards him the blank leaf of paper that he had torn from the log-book. "God grant that it may be of some avail!"

The plaintive cry of a distant gull startled him in his loneliness. It was like the cry of one of his dead shipmates calling upon him from another world. He glanced nervously through the open door of the captain's room, where the captain lay silent in his last sleep. Again he dipped the quill into the ink, and began to write the words that he had already prepared in his mind—

"God send speedie help to his Majesties brig Aurora, homeward bound fr. S. John's to Plimouthe and in dyer distresse. N. Lat. 58°, W. Long. 10° as nere as can be made out. Benjamin Clews 27 July 1746."

This was the message upon which he rested his firmest hopes. And when it was written and the ink was dry, he folded up the paper, wrapped it in a piece of oilskin, and inclosed the packet in a little box-like boat which he had fashioned for the purpose. On the tightly fitting lid of the box he had carved the words "Pleas open," so that no one finding it should doubt there was something precious within.

It was already dusk when he carried the box from the cabin and strode forward along the brig's desolate deck. Mounting to the forecastle, he climbed up on one of the guns, and, leaning over the stout bulwarks, peered down into the darkening sea, with its flickering, phosphorescent lights. The vessel was still drifting, drifting eastward with the ocean current, as she had been drifting for many days.

"It may never be found," the lad sighed, as he flung the box far out upon the waves. "And even if perchance it be picked up, nothing may come of it." He walked slowly aft again. "'Tis not for myself that I care," he mused; "I'd die like the rest of 'em. But the brig is the King's. She is in my charge, so to speak, and I must save her if I can."

He glanced aloft at the close-reefed maintop-sail and at the two storm staysails, and wished in his heart that he had the skill and strength to unfurl more canvas, and thus bring the vessel more speedily to land. Sail had been shortened in the gale of twelve days before, when there had yet been seamen alive and well enough to work the ship. But the gale had fallen to a calm, and now the few small sails that were set only served to keep the brig before the light breeze that came from the westward over the sea.

Ben walked aft to the helm, luffed the Aurora up to the wind, and again lashed the tiller. Then he went below to the cook's galley, where a fire was still burning, and lighted two lanterns. He left one of them on the deck outside the galley door, and taking the other in his hand, strode forward and descended to the lower deck.

Silently entering the petty officers' quarters, he approached one of the hammocks—the only one that was not empty—and gently rested his hand upon it. A slight movement satisfied him.

"How are you now, Mr. Avison?" he inquired, holding up the lantern.

The man turned and looked over the hammock's side. His face was unsightly with the eruption of the terrible disease that had decimated the Aurora's crew.

"Thank'ee, Ben, I'm a bit easier now," he answered, in a thin, weak voice. "What's o'clock? 'Tis after sundown, I see."

"It's five bells in the first night watch," said Ben. "You've been asleep these two watches. Could you eat something, think you, quartermaster? There's a canful of soup in the galley. 'Twould do you a vast of good. I could warm it, if you'd take a drop. Will you?"

"Well, my lad," returned the quartermaster, "I might try to manage just a little, if you'd be so kind. But you're too weary to do cook's work now, sure. How long might it be since you had a rest?"

Ben smiled a sickly smile. "Never mind me," he said, "I'm all right. I'd a watch below the day before yesterday, after the captain was past my help. Doctor Rayner forced me to have a snooze on top of his box; said he'd not forgive me unless I did. I tied a lanyard to my wrist and gave him the other end of it, so that he might haul tight and wake me if he wanted me for anything. He never did haul, though. When I awoke he'd slipped his moorings and sailed off on the long voyage, as Tom Harkiss would have said."

The quartermaster drew a sharp breath and leaned over, gazing at the boy with bleared and lustreless eyes.

"Dead?" he cried. "The surgeon dead?"

Ben nodded.

"God help us, then!" said the quartermaster. "And do you say, boy, that there's only me and you left?"

"That's all," answered Ben sadly. And then he added more cheerfully, "Now I'll lay aft and fetch that soup."

Some few minutes later Ben Clews returned with the flagon of warm soup, and proceeded slowly to feed his sick companion spoonful by spoonful. Very soon the quartermaster fell back exhausted.

"That's enough, boy," said he; "I can't manage no more. You'd best take what's left for yourself, and then get into your bunk. The brig's all safe for a day or two, so long as there's no wind. But if a wind should spring up, look you, we shall be as good as a derelict, short-handed as we are, and maybe be blown back again into the Roarin' Forties. You may lay we shan't run aground at the rate we're goin' now, though. I daresay I shall be well again afore we make land. I've got over the worst of it, and'll be able to lend a hand in a day or two. Then we must see about givin' the poor cap'n and the surgeon a decent buryin', as befits gen'lemen." He paused to take breath. "Of course, Ben, there aren't no sort of sign of land yet, eh? You've kep' a good look-out, I suppose?"

Ben was sitting on the corner of a sea-chest pulling off his boots. He leaned wearily back, and answered with a yawn—

"I can't say as I've seen any real sign," he said. "But somehow it seems to me we can't be very far off. A school of gulls flew over us this morning, and one of 'em—quite a young one—perched on the taffrail. She looked as if she'd just come off her roost."

"That should be a kind of sign," agreed the quartermaster. "What did the cap'n say when the last reckonin' was took? Did he give any word as to where we might make a landfall?"

Ben drowsily answered, "Somewheres off the west of Ireland, if I remember aright."

The quartermaster was silent for many moments. He was mentally calculating the chances of the Aurora reaching land in safety.

"Ben," he said presently, "d'ye think you could put your hand on a chart and find out our bearings?"

But Ben did not answer. He was sound asleep.

And while he slept, the message that he had cast upon the waters went drifting eastward. It drifted for many days, but always steadily eastward in the grip of the great Gulf Stream. And at last it was found. It was picked up by an Orkney fisherman off the west coast of Pomona Island. The slip of paper was duly passed from hand to hand until it came into the possession of Captain Speeding, whose little frigate the Firebrand, twenty-eight guns, was at that time stationed in Stromness Bay for the protection of fisheries and of trade.

Of course Captain Speeding could not think of quitting his comfortable quarters and sailing off on what, after all, was probably a wild-goose chase. How could he tell that the message was genuine? It might well be a mere hoax, a wily ruse of one of the Scapa Flow smugglers, or even (which was quite likely) a clever trick of John Goff, the redoubtable pirate of the Pentland Firth, to get his Majesty's ship Firebrand and her bristling guns temporarily away from the islands, so that he might run in his ill-gotten cargo undisturbed. Captain Speeding had been in active search of John Goff and his freebooting crew for months past, and it was not his intention to let the rascals slip through his fingers.

And yet, considering the matter from the point of view of duty, he dared not ignore the summons that had come to him from across the sea. The distressed ship was one of his Majesty's, and if the writing of the appealing letter was to be credited, succour was urgent.

"Look here, Brown," cried the captain of the Firebrand, flinging the torn and sea-stained slip of paper across the wardroom table to his first lieutenant—"this thing troubles me. If there's anything in it, 'tis my bounden duty, I take it, to send relief of some sort—eh? Read it over again. Read it, and tell me if you think 'tis genuine."

Mr. Brown spread out the flimsy sheet in front of him, screwed up his eyes, and read aloud, slowly and deliberately, the words inscribed upon it—

"God send speedy help to his Majesty's brig Aurora, homeward bound from St. John's to Plymouth, and in dire distress. North latitude 58 degrees, west longitude 10 degrees, as near as can be made out. Benjamin Clews, 27th July 1746."

"Well?" interrogated the captain.

"I'd lay my life 'tis genuine," said Mr. Brown. "I know the Aurora. I saw her in Chatham dockyard three years ago. What's more, I believe my old messmate Arthur Vincent sailed with her on this same cruise. The only thing that troubles me is the writing on this thing." He tapped the paper with his fingers. "This is a youngster's hand—some swab of a ship's boy. Why didn't one of the officers write it? That's what I want to know."

Captain Speeding took a turn aft along the cabin floor with his hands clasped behind his back, and stood at the open port meditatively looking out across the calm, sunlit bay to where a faint film of blue peat smoke floated above the quaint old gabled houses of Stromness. Then he returned to the table, hastily took out his watch, and said decisively—

"Brown, get the chart of the North Atlantic. Find the brig's position at the time when the word was sent off; allow for her being disabled, and calculate where she may be found. I am going to despatch Moreland in search with the cutter. The craft can't be far off, for, you see, this message has only been in the water fourteen days."

"I have already consulted the chart," remarked Mr. Brown. "I make out that the Aurora is somewhere in the neighbourhood of the St. Kilda Islands."

"I never heard of them," confessed the captain. "Are they inhabited?"

"God knows," said Mr. Brown.

II

"D'ye hear, Ben? D'ye hear?"

Ben woke up with a start and rubbed his eyes.

"Did you speak, quartermaster?"

"Speak? Lor' bless you, lad, I've been a-speakin' this half-hour past. What in thunder's all that noise? Listen! I've heard it ever since daybreak. I can't make it out nohow."

Ben sat up and listened. A prolonged half-roaring, half-musical sound filled the air from without.

"It do sound queer, don't it?" he said. "I wonder what 'tis?"

"Best tumble up and find out," advised the quartermaster. "I'd say 'twas birds if it wasn't so loud. Birds couldn't make all that row."

Ben pulled on his boots and went up to the forecastle deck. The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never before encountered in all his three years' voyaging.

"The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never
before encountered."

A fresh westerly breeze was blowing, filling the vessel's few sails. The sun was rising in the east, over a grey-blue sea, and between it and the brig, scarcely, as it seemed, a mile away, lay a group of jagged, rocky islands, whose tallest point was a green-topped mountain, shining bright in the early sunlight like an emerald set in ebony. Above the islands there whirled in ceaseless movement, even as specks in a sunbeam, thousands and thousands of clamorous sea-birds. All around the ship, and as far as the boy's amazed sight could reach, the sea was dotted with swimming puffins and kittiwakes, gannets and fulmars. A green-backed shag was preening its feathers on the extremity of the Aurora's bowsprit; a fearless eider-duck strutted across the deck; along the rail a school of puffins sat, like charity children in their black tippets and white bibs.

But Ben Clews thought less of the sea-birds and their noisy voices than of the one great fact that land was near. He hurried below.

"Land, ho!" he cried, and again, "Land ho!"

"Where away?" called the quartermaster, in a feeble voice from his hammock.

"Right under our bows," answered Ben. "An island—three islands I counted, and we're drifting on to them, hand over hand!"

"Then if that be so, 'tis no place for you down here, my hearty," declared the quartermaster. "Don't think of me, but take your trick at the helm and look arter the ship; for you're cap'n, and crew as well, till I can move, God mend me! Our fate's in your hands for good or bad, and you may lay to that."

"Ay, ay," returned Ben; "but there aren't no hurry just yet a bit, quartermaster. There's time and to spare for me to see you snug. 'Tarn't as if we was bowling along under full sail. Why, we aren't making above a knot an hour at best, and the nearest land's a good mile off yet."

The boy lost no time, however, in making his companion comfortable. Placing a prescribed dose of medicine, a dipper of water, and a softened biscuit within the quartermaster's easy reach, he returned to the deck and took up his post at the helm, heading the brig towards the lee side of the largest island. The rate at which the Aurora was drifting was less than he had calculated, and her distance from the land was greater. Yet slow though her progress was, the islands became more and more distinct with every half-hour. At first it had seemed that there were but three separate islands—a high, isolated rock, whose splintered outline with its many spires and pinnacles gave it the appearance of a great Gothic cathedral rising out of the blue sea on the larboard bow; to the southward, a smaller islet with a rounded, grassy top; and between these two sentinels, the long stretch of the main island with its dark, precipitous sides ascending to verdant slopes. But as the brig drew nearer still, many detached stacks and smaller rocks appeared, the frowning cliffs revealed their yawning caves and caverns, and thousands of tiny specks, that at first had looked like white pebbles in the rock, resolved themselves into roosting sea-birds.

Ben's alert eyes sought for an anchorage, and soon, near the western headland of the largest island, he caught a glimpse of sandy beach, and the gleaming white ribbon of a watercourse. The beach sloped down to a channel of calm sea that was sheltered behind the hill of a protecting island. The calm bay seemed to offer a likely refuge, and towards it Ben steered the brig. Another hour's slow sailing brought the little vessel into the safety of this roadstead, where she lost her headway and rode for the time secure on the swell of the clear green water.

Already Ben Clews had realised the impossibility of casting the heavy anchors. He was only a weak boy, and his weakness was greater than ordinary now, for he had but lately recovered from his own attack of the fell disease which had been fatal to the Aurora's crew, and which now held the quartermaster helpless in his hammock. Ben had been the first in the ship's company to be laid up by the awful visitation. It had been caught from a distressed slave-ship which they had boarded off the Newfoundland Banks, and each of the brig's crew had taken it in his turn. Ben's attack had been only a slight one; but his face still told its tale, and his limbs were yet weak. But if he had not strength to move the anchor, he at least had the ingenuity to devise a workable substitute in the use of a pair of stout hawsers, which he paid out fore and aft, lashing them taut round convenient rocks, which he reached by the means of the ship's smallest boat.

In the afternoon the Aurora lay so snug at her moorings that even the quartermaster, when he heard Ben's report, was forced to express satisfaction.

"You have done well, boy," said he, with an approving nod; "but now that we've fetched land," he added, fixing his bleared eyes on the lad's marred face, "what d'ye mean for to do? Tell me that! It don't seem to me, lookin' at the matter all round, as you might say, that we're any better off than we was before. We've got victuals enough to last us for months, I know; but barrin' the cannibal savages, you can't say as we're in anywise more fortunate than that chap Robisson Crusoe. We haven't saved the Aurora yet, look you. You'd look queer if a gale was to spring up and her be smashed to pieces on them rocks you speak of, wouldn't you?"

"I was thinking we might manage to get a crew together," ventured Ben, somewhat downcast.

"A crew of auks and gannets, I suppose?" sneered the quartermaster.

"No," returned Ben; "I mean men, of course."

The quartermaster had been sitting up in his hammock to listen to the boy's account of how he had brought the brig into the bay, but now he leaned back and lay watching the play of the reflected sunlight on the timbers above him.

"I thought you said as how you had made out no signs of houses?" he pursued.

Ben admitted that he had discovered no dwelling-places on the land. For all he knew, indeed, the islands might never have known human inhabitants. Certainly no fields nor growing crops were visible from this west bay. "But," he added more hopefully, "I saw a dead sheep on the hillside when I rowed ashore with the bight of the hawser; and where there's sheep, d'ye see, there's pretty sure to be men."

"I'll allow that," agreed the quartermaster. "But even if so be you find your men, you can't force 'em to come aboard a plague ship."

Ben lapsed into silence at this sane remark; but presently, as if a bright thought had struck him, he said—

"Anyhow, I've a mind to make a trip in the dingey and see if I can find some people. From what I can make out, these here islands must belong to Great Britain somehow; and if there's any one living on 'em, why, they'll speak our own tongue and tell us where we are, and that's something."

So when he had cooked some food and prepared a meal for himself and his companion, he set off upon his voyage of discovery. He pulled the little boat round under the tremendous cliffs of the north coast of the island, but sought in vain for a landing-place or for a sign of habitation. Sea-birds were everywhere—on the ledges of the cliffs, and in the long dark caverns; they filled the sunlit air, they speckled the sea, and the outlying skerries were white with them. The cries they made were mingled in a strange musical harmony that was like the pealing of a church organ. The short shrill treble of the auks and puffins, the trumpet cry of the wild swans, the mewing notes of the kittiwakes, the tenors of the divers and guillemots, and the deep bass croaking of the cormorants and ravens united in a prolonged symphony, and through it all was the profound roar of the sea from the throats of countless caves.

If Ben had been a naturalist, instead of an ill-informed ship's boy, he would have recognised this as a paradise of birds. But he only thought of his sick companion on board the Aurora, and of how he might find human help. He rowed along the coast for some two miles without discovering even so much as a yard of beach. Once he came upon a floating log of driftwood—the remnant of some bygone shipwreck. Once, too, he heard what he took to be the bleating of a sheep, but there were no signs of human inhabitants. His little voyage was useless. So he went about, and returned disappointed towards the brig, resolving to make his next journey of exploration by land.

As he came again into the bay where the Aurora lay at her moorings, he glanced up the little glen that led up between the hills. The land was bare of trees—a barren moor, with tufts of purple heather growing among the boulders on the higher ground, and level beds of grass marking the course of a fresh-water stream.

On the heights he saw the figure of a man.

For a moment Ben questioned within himself if it would be wise to prolong his absence from the brig and go up to the man and speak with him; but as the stranger was only a short distance away, he decided to go ashore and follow him. He brought the boat in to the beach, pulled her up a yard or two above the tide, and set off in pursuit.

When he reached the spot where he had first seen him, the man had disappeared. Ben was about to turn and walk back to the boat when a movement near him on the heather attracted his eye. A dog approached him, smelt at his heels, and then scampered away. Ben followed the animal over the brow of the hill, and at this point he came within view of the farther end of the island, and a wide bay that opened out between two great rocky headlands. He stood for a time contemplating the scene, almost forgetting the Aurora and her sick quartermaster.

A voice at his elbow startled him. It was a woman's voice, strangely gentle and sweet.

"You are a stranger here," she said. "Where have you come from?"

Ben turned. At sight of his scarred face the woman shrank from him, and then the lad remembered the infection that was upon him.

"The woman shrank from him."

"Stand back from me!" he cried. "I have been ill—it is the smallpox, as they call it—and all my shipmates are dead of it; all except one, who is now aboard the brig, across the hill there, in the bay." He stepped back as he spoke, and put her to the windward of him, so that the infection might not reach her.

"A ship!" she cried in agitation, clasping her hands. "At last! at last! And you can rescue me. You can carry me across to Scotland, and I shall no longer pine and languish on this barren, heaven-forsaken rock!"

The boy marvelled at her words, not understanding her meaning. He even wondered if she were in her right senses.

"How do you name these islands, ma'am?" he asked, as if to test her sanity.

She looked about her nervously, as though half afraid that the very birds should overhear her.

"This where we now are is called Hirta," she answered. "The rock to the north is Borrera. The one to the west is Soa. They are the St. Kilda islands, and they lie out some fourscore miles west from the mainland of Scotland."

As Ben listened to her voice, and contemplated her delicate hands and her refined face, he knew almost by instinct that, in spite of her coarse, homespun clothing, she was not of the common sort, but a woman of good birth. He stood silently watching her, wondering how it happened that a gentlewoman should be in such a place.

"From what land do you come?" she questioned. "You are English by your tongue."

"We are from Newfoundland," explained Ben. "But our ship is English—his Majesty's brig-of-war Aurora. And you, ma'am, how do it happen as a lady like you is here?"

"I am a prisoner," she answered. "I am Rachel Chiesley. My husband has imprisoned me here because I knew his secrets—his secrets that would be the hanging of him if they were known to the King. He told people that I was dead, and they believed him. There was a public funeral, but the coffin was filled with stones, and I, who was supposed to be buried, was secretly carried off by his agents and brought over here to St. Kilda. I have been here for five long years, living among islanders who are little more than savages, and who understand no word that I speak. No ship have I seen during all that time. But now yours has come. God has sent you, and you will rescue me!"

Ben hesitated for an instant. Then he said awkwardly—

"It might be done, ma'am, if so be you could get some of your savages to make up a crew and work our ship home to Plymouth. We're short-handed, d'ye see. In fact, barring myself, and the quartermaster, what's lying ill with the smallpox, there aren't nobody aboard to trim the sails or do anything."

The marooned woman made a step towards the boy, but he waved her back.

"Don't come nigh me!" he cried, "'tis dangerous."

She shook her head. "I am not afraid," she said, "and I would risk any danger to get away from this horrible place." She glanced swiftly westward to where a vast cloud of sea-birds now darkened the sky. "Something has disturbed the gulls," she added.

At the same moment the report of a firearm sounded faintly from the distance.

"It must be the shipwrecked seamen," explained the lady. "Their ship was broken on the crags in the storm last week, and they have been living in one of the caves. They are evil-looking men, and the islanders fear them."

"The shot seemed to me to come from where the Aurora is lying," cried Ben in alarm. "I'll engage 'tis the quartermaster signalling to me to go back." And giving a hasty seaman's salute, he abruptly left his strange companion, and ran across the moor in the direction of the brig. An unaccountable dread of some impending disaster oppressed him as he ran. From the top of the hill he saw that the Aurora was still riding safe at her moorings; but his quick eye discovered the figures of two men moving upon her quarter-deck. Who could they be? He made his way down to the beach. He glanced at the water's edge where he had left his boat, but the boat was gone.

III

"I'm not by half so ill as Ben thinks," ruminated the quartermaster, as he lay in his lonely hammock pondering over the situation during Ben's absence. "I do believe I'm fit even now to take watch and watch about with him. 'Tis hard on the lad to leave him to do all the work, and me able to lend a hand." He glanced towards the open port, through which he could see a snowy-white seagull calmly floating on the green water. Then looking down at the deck below him, he added, "Blamed if I don't get out of this and see what I can do." He sat up, dangling his trembling legs over the side of his hammock; his toes were but a dozen inches from the flooring.

"I believe I can do it," he went on; and turning over, he gripped the hammock with his two hands, and swung himself slowly and cautiously down until his feet touched the boards.

His limbs were shaky, and his head seemed to swim; but stepping out, he succeeded in tottering across to the nearest bulkhead. Supporting himself by his outstretched hands, he went step by step along the gangway to the foot of the companion-way. Slowly he mounted the stairs, until the fresh sea-air played upon his bare head. He sat on the top stair for a long time, drinking in the sweet cool atmosphere, and looking up into the blue sky and its sailing white clouds.

"Seems to me I'd best step aft to the cap'n's room," he muttered to himself. "'Tis no place for the likes o' me to enter, certainly; but being as Ben and me are in charge of the brig, why, 'tis no court-martial matter. Nay, now I come to think of it, 'tis my duty to go in." And rising with difficulty to his feet, he staggered aft and boldly but respectfully entered.

The first thing that caught his eye was the captain's silver ink-pot on the table; then it was the mingled red and blue folds of the Union Jack lying across the dead body of the captain in the inner sleeping-room.

"Good boy, Ben," he said. "You haven't forgot what's due to a king's officer. You and me'll have to act the parson soon, too, if we can lay our hands on a prayer-book. Mayhap you know the words without the book; you must ha' heard 'em pretty often lately. But I don't know 'em, except 'We therefore commit his body to the deep until the sea shall give up her dead——'"

An unexpected sound startled the quartermaster in his ruminations. It was a man's gruff voice, and it came from outside, below the brig's counter.

"I don't know what you bullies think," it said, "but it looks to me as if the crew'd all gone off on a holiday. Pull round to the gangway ladder, Alick, and let's get aboard of her. Crew or no crew, King's ship or merchantman, I'm going to take her, and the Jolly Roger shall fly at her gaff peak before——"

The quartermaster did not hear what limit of time the man allowed himself for the accomplishment of his daring proposal; but a thrill of terror ran through him as he realised what manner of men these were.

"God! Where is Ben?" he cried, and he looked round the cabin for some weapon with which to defend himself and the ship. The captain's pistols were in their rack. With what speed his bodily weakness allowed him, he went to them and took a pair of them down. They were already loaded.

"It's one sick man against a boatload of pirates!" he said. "But, God helping me, they shall not take the ship while I'm alive!" As he passed to the door he caught sight of the reflection of his own face in the captain's mirror, and started back appalled. But the remembrance of the scourge that had killed off the Aurora's company leapt to his mind. "We've got at least one strong ally, me and the King," he cried, as he staggered out to the doorway under the poop. He stood there, steadying himself with one foot on the companion-ladder, not venturing to go nearer to the open gangway, where already he could hear the talk of the strangers on the ladder as they climbed up from their boat.

The quartermaster listened intently, trembling the while.

"Tumble up!" cried the one in authority. "Make for the quarter-deck."

A man sprang in upon the deck—a tall, evil-looking man, with a bushy black beard and bedraggled clothing, a naked cutlass in his hand. He was followed by three others, and then a fifth. The fifth man was young and handsome, and his blue coat was adorned with tarnished gold braid. The five of them advanced towards the poop. The quartermaster levelled his pistol at their bodies.

"Stand back!" he commanded. "Who are you? and what is your business on this ship? 'Tis King George's ship, look you, and——"

"Shut your ugly face!" cried the tall black-bearded man, with an oath.

The quartermaster fired his two pistols, and the man fell. His four companions hesitated, staring at the quartermaster's disease-scarred countenance. None of them carried firearms; or if they did so, they were without ammunition. Their leader, the youngest of the band, stepped forward, sword in hand. The quartermaster, already exhausted, retreated into the cabin, banging to and bolting the door.

"The quartermaster fired his two pistols,
and the man fell."

The pirates (for such he was now assured that they were) went up to the poop-deck, and from this point of vantage surveyed the ship.

"You're right, Goff," said one of them, addressing the leader. "The craft's got no crew—none, at least, except that strawberry-faced lubber that has shot poor Tom."

"It seems so, Alick," returned Goff. "But some of 'em must have gone ashore in the boat. They'll have gone across to St. Kilda village. One of you had better pull ashore to the cave and bring off our men while there's time. Phillips, go you. But you might take a bigger boat than the one we found. There's plenty of them, see. Lend a hand there, Flett, and you, Dewson, and launch that starboard boat. Well," he continued speaking to the man named Alick, "she's a real goddess, this Aurora. Not very clean about the decks, 'tis true, but well found, in a double sense, eh? I wonder how she came in here? She doesn't seem to have suffered much in the gale that was so fatal to our poor ship. But 'tis a mystery how she came to be so short-handed. Why, they've not even anchored her!"

He strode towards the men who were launching the boat, and gave them some directions, while Alick stepped to the skylight, and leaning over it, peered down into the cabin where the quartermaster had temporarily entrenched himself.

It was at this moment that Ben Clews came down to the beach and discovered that the brig's boat had disappeared. From behind the rock near which he had left it, he looked over at the Aurora in terrified amazement. Who were these men that were aboard of her? And what was the meaning of the shot that he had heard? Surely there was something wrong! He blamed himself now for having left the brig. While he watched, he saw a boat put out from her, with one man at the oars, and his heart leapt with hope at the thought that it was coming shoreward for himself. He waved his hand; but the rower did not see, or disregarded, his signal, and pulled with steady, measured stroke through the sound in the direction of the western headland of the bay, soon to be lost to sight beyond the cliffs, where the homing sea-birds screamed.

Ben noted the drift of the current, and calculated the distance that divided him from the brig. The vessel's wide square stern was towards him, and from over her taffrail the stout hawser was stretched to the isolated rock round which he had bound it. The bight of the rope dipped into the water, making a rippled track as the brig rose and fell on the ocean swell. The rock was but a dozen yards away from him, separated from him by a deep channel of calm sea. Ben was not a great swimmer, but he thought he could cross those dozen yards; and reaching the rock, he would then be able to gain the ship, dragging himself hand over hand along the hawser. He pulled off his heavy sea-boots and left them on the shingle, waded breast deep into the sea, and throwing himself forward, struck out. The current was sweeping strong, but he had allowed for its carrying him out of the straight course. After a tough struggle, he came within a few feet of the rock. The tide was taking him past it, but he grabbed at a tangle of seaweed, caught it, and dragged himself into safety.

He rested for many minutes on the rock, shivering. Then he climbed up to the hawser and prepared for the final battle. With hands and legs at work, he slipped down the incline of the rope until his body was again in the water. Hand over hand he pulled himself along. The upward ascent was more difficult, for his limbs were already tired and sore. Very soon he found that the task of swarming up to the brig's rail was impossible. Besides, he was not sure that the strange men were not still on the quarter-deck. So he dropped once again into the sea, and swam round to the Aurora's larboard side, where the small boat was dragging at her painter at the foot of the gangway ladder.

Exhausted and breathing heavily, he at last caught at a rung of the ladder, and climbed up a few steps. When he had rested and recovered his free breathing, he mounted farther, and peeped in through the open gangway. No one was in sight. Yet, what was that lying on the main deck? He shuddered as his eyes rested on the prostrate form of the huge black-bearded man, and the wet crimson stain that lay about it, and converged in two thin lines that ended at the scupper.

At sight of the dead man the boy drew back in horror. Murder had been committed, and he had not the courage to enter upon the deck. As he turned to go down the ladder a few steps, he looked towards the shore and saw the woman Rachel Chiesley standing there at the water's edge, waving her hand in signal to the ship. Ben descended and quietly stepped into the boat. No one in the brig saw him as he rowed away to where the woman waited.

"Take me with you!" she implored, as the boat's keel grounded on the shingle. "In mercy take me away in your ship!"

Ben bade her get into the dingey, and she obeyed. He felt that, with a human companion to encourage him, he could now go on board the brig with all his lost boldness. Neither spoke as the little craft was pulled back to the vessel's side. When he had secured the boat he got out and climbed the ladder, signing to the woman to follow. He crept on board, rose to his feet, and sped forward and down the stairs to the lower deck. At the foot of the stairs he paused until Rachel Chiesley joined him; and there he pointed towards the open door of a tiny dark cabin, telling her to enter and remain in there until he should see that all was safe on board.

His heart seemed to cease its beating when, on going into the compartment where he had left the quartermaster, he discovered that the sick man's hammock was empty. What had happened? What was to be done?

He saw a cup of rum and water that the quartermaster had left untouched in the forenoon on the top of a chest. He drank some and it revived him. Leaving the cabin, he made his way through a dark passage along the lower deck to the gunner's storeroom; and there he provided himself with a cutlass, a brace of small pistols, a full powder-flask, and a handful of shot. He carefully charged the pistols, and when he was thus armed he returned to the main-deck and stole aft to the poop. The door of the captain's quarters was open now, and the splintered lock told its own tale. Voices came from within. Ben listened, crouching down on his hands and knees.

"You'd best come out of there, Mr. Strawberry-face," Goff was saying, "unless you want us to break in the door and drag you out. We'll not harm you. Come out and have a drink with us. 'Tis charming brandy, this." There was a clink of glasses. "Come," he added persuasively. "Join us in a glass, and tell us your yarn. We can get nothing from this silent shipmate of yours in the bunk here." Ben knew that the man was referring to the dead surgeon. "Twas the King's ship, you say. You may well say 'was'; for 'tis his no longer, but mine! mine! And I mean to set sail and be off on a glorious cruise so soon as my men come aboard. We'll run up the Jolly Roger and scour the seas, and send Jimmy Speeding and his Firebrands to the bottom of the Pentland Firth to play with the mermaids. Won't we, Alick?"

"That we will," gurgled Alick into the mouth of his glass of brandy. "And Strawberry-face shall be our master-gunner, and share in the swag with the rest of us."

The quartermaster's voice came faintly from within the captain's sleeping-room.

"I'll see you all hanged first!" he growled with a fierce seaman's oath. "Wait till my mates come aboard. They'll let you know what it means to trespass on a king's ship."

"Mates?" cried Goff with a short laugh. "There can't be many of 'em if they all went ashore in the cockleshell we found on the beach!"

Ben knew now what these men were; knew, too, that the quartermaster was still alive and game. He crept out from his place of concealment, stole up to the quarter-deck, climbed over the rail, and with the help of a rope lowered himself down to the port-hole of the room in which the quartermaster had ensconced himself. The port-hole was open. He saw the quartermaster sitting on the edge of the dead captain's bunk with a pistol gripped in each hand.

"I'm here, quartermaster," whispered Ben. "Come to the port-hole."

"Thank God!" cried the quartermaster. And without preface or questioning he added in a whisper, "You see what these rats of pirates are up to. They're in possession, as you might say, and there's more of 'em coming. But we've got to save the brig, Ben, come what may. Listen! Have you got your pistols?" Ben nodded. "Right. Well, crawl round to the poop door. Stay there till you hear me cough. Then run in and let fly at 'em. Pick your men and be smart. I'll do the same. When we've killed 'em—the four of 'em—one of the carronades'll help us to keep the others from boarding us, d'ye see?"

"I understand," returned Ben, and he moved quietly away to obey his instructions.

Many minutes passed before he heard the quartermaster's signal. From where he crouched in the shadow of the passage he saw the inner door of the captain's bedroom flung open. A moment afterwards four shots were fired, and three of the pirates fell. The fourth, Goff himself, had seen the quartermaster's uplifted pistols. One was levelled at himself. With the quickness of thought he snatched his dagger from its sheath and dexterously hurled it across the room. The flashing weapon turned in its flight and the point plunged into the quartermaster's bared throat. The pistol-shot, intended for Goff, buried itself in a cross-beam of the cabin ceiling.

Ben Clews and the pirate leader were now alone together. Ben gripped his cutlass and rushed forward in a desperate charge, but tripping over the body of one of the two men he himself had shot dead, he gave a false thrust. His cutlass was snatched from his grip by the pirate's left hand, while at the same instant a full brandy bottle, wielded as a bludgeon, came down upon his head with a blow that stunned him.

IV

When Ben returned to consciousness he still lay upon the cabin floor. The blood from cuts made by the broken glass was dry upon his face. He heard the thud of waves against the brig's quarter. The vessel was heeling over, pitching as she sailed under a fresh breeze upon the open sea. From the deck above him came the sound of feet, the splash of water, and the scrubbing of holystones. A shaft of sunlight came in through the stern windows, shedding light about the cabin. The door of the captain's inner room was open; the Union Jack coverlet was gone, and the bed was vacant. The surgeon's body and the bodies of the dead quartermaster and the three pirates had also been removed. On the table a white cloth was laid, and upon it were the remains of a meal. It was evident that the pirates were making themselves thoroughly at home, and that they had taken possession of the brig in good earnest.

Ben anxiously looked at the great iron-bound chest in which, as he knew, there had been inclosed certain State documents of greatest importance to the Government. The iron bands and the hinges had been tampered with, but they had withstood the assault, and the chest and its precious contents were still safe.

Some one entered the cabin. It was John Goff. He had apparently been helping himself to the captain's wardrobe, for he was now attired in the full naval costume of the time.

"So ho! my lad," said he, seeing that Ben had recovered. "You have come back to your senses, eh? That's good. Now you can tell me all about this ship. Where was she bound for?"

"Plymouth," answered Ben. "From St. John's. Newfoundland." And then, in response to further questioning, the boy told the whole history of the voyage, omitting only such facts as he deemed too sacred to betray. And when he had come to the end of the story the pirate thanked him, said he was a good lad, and that he should now be rated as a junior quarter-deck officer. Ben did not demur to this, but while seeming to agree to the proposal, resolved in his mind still to do what lay in his power to retake the brig and bring her into an English port. And for the days that followed he performed such duties as were expected of him, always remembering that he was a servant of the King, and that the safety of the Aurora now depended solely upon his own life and his own integrity.

"You have come back to your senses, eh?"

As soon as he was at liberty to move unsuspected about the ship, he made his way to the little cabin where he had left Rachel Chiesley. She had not yet been discovered by Goff or his men. Ben conducted her to a yet safer hiding-place in the ship where she could remain secure from the pirates; and every morning the lad secretly brought her food and attended to her wants. On one occasion when he was with her she told him more of her history, and he learned that Rachel Chiesley was but the name of her girlhood, and that her title now was Lady Grange. Her husband was a notorious Jacobite, and it was because she had threatened to betray an evil plot which he was hatching that he had cruelly marooned her on the sea-girt rock of St. Kilda. This knowledge made Ben glad that he had chanced thus far to be of service to her, and for her sake, as well as for the sake of preserving the precious State documents that were in the cabin, he prayed that he might be able at last to save the ship.

He learned by degrees that it was Goff's intention to keep the brig beating about in the open sea until his crew of eleven men should have time so to disguise the vessel, by altering her rig and painting out her white stripe, that no one might recognise her again. This plan was helped by the fact that the brig was amply provisioned and was in good seaworthy trim. But the work progressed slowly, and ten days had gone by before Goff deemed it expedient to make a direct course and steer for the Orkneys.

Ben had been watching the crew day by day, little doubting that sooner or later the plague of which so many of his messmates had died would again assert itself. Already he observed that some of the men were beginning to move languidly and to look haggard and sick. On the twelfth day one of them took to his hammock. In the evening of the same day two others fell ill. Bold and careless of danger though these pirates were when it was a question of waylaying a merchant ship or engaging in an action with a vessel of war, they were one and all panic-stricken in contemplation of smallpox.

On the thirteenth day the Aurora was again within sight of the St. Kilda islands, giving them, however, a wide berth. Late in the evening Ben was in the watch on deck, when he espied a sail on the starboard bow. He did not report it, although it was the first that he had seen for many weeks. Instead, he strolled to the flag locker, took out a white ensign, and boldly ran it up, reversed, to the gaff peak. The signal of distress was answered by the approaching vessel. Then Ben hauled down his flag, lest Goff, coming up on deck, should see it and guess its meaning. So far, none but the man at the helm had observed this action, and he, as it chanced, was so far advanced in the sickness that he minded nothing. Ben glanced into his face.

"Y'are looking sick, Allen," said he. "Give me the tiller for a spell, and go you below."

The man relinquished it willingly enough, and Ben, now alone on deck, steered the brig down upon the on-coming stranger. He had a brace of loaded pistols in his belt, prepared to fire upon Goff if he should appear from below and interfere.

When the two vessels drew nearer, Ben recognised, to his joy, that the stranger was a man-of-war's cutter. He waited until they drew within hailing distance of each other, then suddenly put over the helm, throwing the brig's sails aback. She lost her headway, and the cutter dropped alongside.

"Ahoy, there!" cried the young lieutenant from her bow. "What ship are you?"

Ben answered at the fullest pitch of his voice—

"His Majesty's brig Aurora. For the love of God stand by us!"

"The very craft we're in search of," returned Captain Speeding's messenger. "Throw us a line, and I'll come aboard you!"

Ben flung a coil of rope; but before he could see whether or not it had been caught, John Goff had run up on deck, furious and cursing.

"You young traitor!" he cried, seeing what was going on. "What are you up to?"

"I'm up to saving his Majesty's ship," coolly returned Ben, levelling his pistol at the pirate. "Stand back, John Goff, or you're a dead man!" For full ten minutes he kept the man at bay. Perhaps he could not have done so if Goff had not been in the first stage of the sickness and too languid to act the bully. Once, indeed, Goff made a step forward as if with the intention of wresting the weapon from the boy's hand. Ben altered his aim a few inches and pulled the trigger. The shot entered Goff's shoulder. Ben took out his other pistol.

At this juncture the cutter's lieutenant leapt upon the brig's bulwarks, and in another moment appeared on the quarter-deck.

Lowering his weapon, Ben turned and saluted him. The lieutenant, however, had caught sight of the pirate and recognised him.

"Goff!" he cried.

"Ay, Goff," returned the pirate with meek submission. "You've got me at last, Master Firebrand—thanks to this meddlesome swab. I suppose I must surrender. I wouldn't do so if 'twere not that my men are all ill. This blessed craft's plague-stricken, Mr. Moreland. You'd best take care of your crew. Work the brig into Stromness, or any other handy port—even into Execution Dock if you will. I'll not interfere. I haven't the strength."

How Lieutenant Moreland succeeded in taking the Aurora into Stromness without endangering the health of his men; how the brig was there disinfected, remanned, and sent home to Plymouth, need not here be told. Lady Grange found that her evil husband had died a week before the ship brought her home, and she took possession of his estates, none questioning her rights; and she proved a good friend to Ben Clews, who was recompensed for his conduct by promotion to the quarter-deck, and as midshipman, lieutenant, and finally captain, served in the King's navy through war and through peace for many, many years, and always with honour.