Dick examined the pages of figures hopelessly.

“I can’t read ’em,” said Dick; “it’s numbers.”

“Buzz it overboard,” said Mr. Button.

Dick did what he was told joyfully, and the proceedings resumed.

He tried on the tall hat, and the children laughed. On her old friend’s head the thing ceased to have terror for Emmeline.

She had two methods of laughing. The angelic smile before mentioned—a rare thing—and, almost as rare, a laugh in which she showed her little white teeth, whilst she pressed her hands together, the left one tight shut, and the right clasped over it.

He put the hat on one side, and continued the sorting, searching all the pockets of the clothes and finding nothing. When he had arranged what to keep, they flung the rest overboard, and the valuables were conveyed to the captain’s cabin, there to remain till wanted.

Then the idea that food might turn up useful as well as old clothes in their present condition struck the imaginative mind of Mr. Button, and he proceeded to search.

The lazarette was simply a cistern full of sea water; what else it might contain, not being a diver, he could not say. In the copper of the caboose lay a great lump of putrifying pork or meat of some sort. The harness cask contained nothing except huge crystals of salt. All the meat had been taken away. Still, the provisions and water brought on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen.

Mr. Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig like a duckling beside a duck; the broad channel might have been likened to the duck’s wing half extended. He got on the channel to see if the painter was safely attached. Having made all secure, he climbed slowly up to the main-yard arm, and looked round upon the sea.

CHAPTER IX

Shadows in the Moonlight

“DADDY’S A long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden.

They were seated on the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if troubled by fervent heat.

“Ay, is he,” said Mr. Button; “but it’s better late than never. Now don’t be thinkin’ of him, for that won’t bring him. Look at the sun goin’ into the wather, and don’t be spakin’ a word, now, but listen and you’ll hear it hiss.”

The children gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were mute as the great blazing shield touched the water that leapt to meet it.

You could hear the water hiss—if you had imagination enough. Once having touched the water, the sun went down behind it, as swiftly as a man in a hurry going down a ladder. As he vanished a ghostly and golden twilight spread over the sea, a light exquisite but immensely forlorn. Then the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened as if to a closing door, and the stars rushed over the sky.