"Mornin', young leddy!" exclaimed Jasper, decorously attempting to make good the obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe. "Hope this finds you like as it leaves me at present."

Hilda smiled encouragingly. She had made good progress towards recovery during Burgoyne's absence. A warm colour was suffusing her sun-burnt cheeks, her hands had lost the clammy coldness following a prolonged immersion. Her short locks had dried, and, thanks to the genial rays of the sun and to the fact that she had persistently kept moving, her clothes were once more in normal condition. She was bare-headed, her straw hat having vanished during the struggle to gain the shore. Her greatcoat—Captain Davis's parting gift—was thrown over a bush to complete the drying process.

"I'm awfully glad to see you, Jasper," said the girl. She never took kindly to the Scillonian's surname.

"An' so be I," rejoined Minalto.

"We've brought a few coco-nuts," announced Alwyn. "Just enough to carry on with. You're looking better already, Miss Vivian."

"I am," declared Hilda. "But where's Mr. Mostyn?"

"That's what I'd like tu know, Miss," said Minalto promptly, before Alwyn could frame an evasive reply. "'Tes too much tu ax o' Providence that all four o' we should come through las' night. A nice lad e' wur, but nothin' to speak of far's strength goes, 'specially seein' as 'ow he wur that knocked about when they pirates blowed the wireless cabin ower th' side. 'E'll come ashore sure now, young leddy, feet first-like, and then us can bury 'im proper-like."

"Shut up, Jasper!" exclaimed the Third Officer sharply. "You don't know what you're talking about. We've got to work, not cackle. There's plenty to be done before night, and the sooner we get on with it the better."

"How long do you think we shall have to stay here, Mr. Burgoyne?" asked the girl. "I mean, does it depend upon whether we can get away on our own account or have we to wait until a vessel takes us off?"

"We will possibly be here for some time, Miss Vivian," replied Alwyn. "We've found part of the life-boat, but even with her air-tanks intact it would be a tough proposition to construct anything sufficiently seaworthy to make another start. You see, we have no tools and precious little material. And, of course, the chance of a ship picking us up is a very slight one. We are out of the recognized routes, and unless a trading schooner comes along—if she knows the dangerous reefs of the island she won't—we may be here for weeks and months."

"Proper Crusoes!" exclaimed Hilda enthusiastically. "It sounds too exciting to be true."

"Strange things happen at sea," observed Burgoyne oracularly. He was far from feeling enthusiastic. The problem of warding off starvation had yet to be solved. "However, we'll set to work. There's a shelter to be rigged up for you, Miss Vivian, some sort of caboose for Jasper and me, fresh water to be found, and some sort of provisions laid in. We've two tins of bully beef—that's all."

"An' the li'l ole keg," interposed Minalto. "Might be spirits. Come in handy-like—not that I wants 'en, bein' teetotal-like come twelve or fifteen year—almost."

The al-fresco meal consisted of taro (eaten raw in default of a fire), and bully beef with coco-nut milk. It served its purpose in quelling the pangs of hunger, but the opening of the tin of beef caused Burgoyne some qualms. Its contents were far more than sufficient for three persons. It ought to last them a week, but the difficulty was how to keep the meat when once exposed to the air. To leave it in the battered tin would result in the beef's turning bad very quickly. At Hilda's suggestion they wrapped the remnants in palm leaves and placed them in the shade, hoping that the heat would not spoil their scanty stock.

"We're just off along the beach," announced Alwyn, who, having recovered from his exhausting experience, was now full of energy.

"May I come too?" asked Hilda.

"Certainly, Miss Vivian," was the reply. "That is, if you feel equal to it."

"I am quite all right, thank you, Mr. Burgoyne," declared Hilda. "Provided you don't want me to climb trees or swim off to the reef, I think you won't find me an encumbrance."

"Right-o," assented Alwyn cheerfully. "Let's make a move. I don't suppose this island is so very big. We may as well explore it and find out how we stand, before we decide upon the site for our camp. A lot depends upon where we find fresh water."

"Will there be any?" asked the girl.

"I should think so," replied Burgoyne, pointing to a hill about a hundred feet in height. "That rising ground points to it, and the fairly dense vegetation is another hopeful sign. I suggest we try to walk right round the island—it can't be so very far—before we start exploring the interior."

They gained the beach, and instead of turning northward—Burgoyne had already examined the beach for about two hundred yards that way—they walked in the opposite direction. Before they had gone more than fifty paces Minalto, whose eyes incessantly scanned the shore, stooped and dragged from the water's edge a canvas sack containing the life-boat's stock of biscuit, utterly spoilt by the salt water.

"Things be a-comin' ashore-like," he remarked. "When flood-tide makes then te's time to look."

"I wonder if we soaked the biscuits in fresh water and thoroughly got rid of the salt we could bake them again?" asked Hilda. "I'll try it. How do we make a fire?"

Burgoyne shook his head. He had already tried his hand at rubbing together two sticks on the chance of obtaining a flame, but without success.

"I'll have another shot at it," he continued, when he had related his failure. "Perhaps the wood wasn't perfectly dry. Savages obtain fire that way, but I've never watched them do it. Wish I had."

Suddenly Hilda laid her hand on Burgoyne's arm and pointed.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There's smoke!"

"Sure enough!" ejaculated Alwyn. "No, steady; we don't want to rush into a native kitchen before we find out who the gentlemen are. Stay here, Minalto, with Miss Vivian, while I do a little observation work."

The smoke, rising in the now hot and almost motionless air, was ascending beyond a clump of palms about a quarter of a mile away. It was not a forest fire; the column of vapour was too small for that. The logical conclusion was that it had been started by human agency.

Keeping close to the brushwood that skirted the beach above high-water mark, Alwyn approached the scene of his intended investigations. But after he had gone almost two-thirds of the distance, farther progress was barred by an inlet invisible from the spot whence the three castaways had set out on their tour of exploration. The entrance to the creek was narrow and shallow, being at that state of the tide barely three feet deep. Farther inland it opened out into a fairly wide basin, about eighty yards in width and almost entirely surrounded by dense vegetation, except for two converging glades at the head of the natural harbour.

High and dry just above the reach of the water was a dark object, which Alwyn recognized as the bow portion of the life-boat, while the otherwise smooth sand all around it bore traces of several footprints of a person or persons going and returning.

"Natives, perhaps," thought Burgoyne. "They've found the wreckage and stripped it of everything of value, unless—— But I may as well make sure."

Working his way inland and cautiously forcing his passage through the scrub, Burgoyne drew nearer and nearer the fire. He could hear the crackling of the burning wood; a savoury smell assailed his nostrils. Save for the spluttering of the fire, the utmost silence prevailed.

As he carefully parted the brushwood he came in full view of the fire. He stopped dead in sheer astonishment, hardly able to credit his senses.

The fire was burning in an open space. Close to it two pieces of cane had been set up derrick-fashion, while a longer and heavier piece, with one end peg............