"I don't think so at all," cut in Hoskins, before Mr Perry could reply. "It may seem so to you, Purchase, because it has just been presented to you, fresh and unexpectedly, as it were. But when we arrived at King Olomba's town yesterday morning, and found neither slaves nor barracoon there, I must confess that I was visited by some such suspicion as that of which Captain Perry has just been speaking, although in my case it did not take quite such a concrete and connected form. To my mind there is only one thing against your theory, sir," he continued, turning to the skipper, "and that is the existence of the factory on the lagoon." "Yes," agreed the captain, "I admit that to be somewhat difficult to account for. And yet, perhaps not so very difficult either; because if the fellows who gave Captain Harrison the information upon which he acted happened to have a grudge against the owners of that factory they would naturally be more than glad if, while groping about in search of the imaginary slavers and barracoon, we should stumble upon the real thing and destroy it. All this, however, is mere idle conjecture, which may be either well founded or the opposite; but there is one indisputable fact about this business, which is--unless Mr Purchase is altogether mistaken, which I do not for a moment believe--that the _Psyche_ was last night cut adrift from her anchors and wrecked by somebody who must have a lurking-place in this immediate neighbourhood; and I intend to have a hunt for that somebody to-morrow." CHAPTER FIVE. THE BATTLE OF THE SAND SPIT. As the evening progressed it became evident to me that our new captain had developed a very preoccupied mood; he fell into long fits of abstraction; and often answered very much at random such remarks as happened to be addressed to him. He appeared to be turning over some puzzling matter in his mind; and at length that matter came to the surface and found expression in speech.