"If you resolves to go, why, d'ye see, sir, I goes with you," said Ben Yool, stepping up. "One of these brown chaps says he'll go, and that's all you want. To my mind, if we can frighten the villains from going on with their murderous work, we may do some good; but as to forcing them to hold their hands, we couldn't do it if we were even to lay the little _Dove_ alongside them." Mr Brand thanked Ben for his promptness in offering to support him, and accepted his services; and arming themselves, they both, without further delay, accompanied by a tall, strong Sandwich islander, lowered the schooner's dinghy into the water. "What I'd advise, sir, is this," said Ben: "Let us get as close up to where the cries come from as we can without being seen, and then let us hail the vessel, or raft, or whatever it may be, in gruff voices, and say that if they don't knock off their murdering work, and let the people they are harming go free, we will blow them all up into the sky. If they don't heed us, we'll shriek and cry, and make all sorts of noises, as if a thousand demons were about to board them; and, as people who are about any bad work are certain to have bad consciences, they'll fancy that the noises are ten times louder and worse than they are. If that does not succeed, we must try some other dodge; we shall hit off something or other, I daresay." While Ben was thus delivering himself, Mr Brand was loading his pistols. All things being ready, they stepped into the boat and shoved off. They were immediately lost to sight in the thick darkness which surrounded us. Their oars had been muffled; but we could hear the gentle lap of the oars in the water for long afterwards, showing to what a distance sound could travel, and that the scene of the outrage we had been listening to might be further off than we supposed. As Mr Brand had taken the bearings of the _Dove_, and proposed pulling directly to the south-west, whence the sounds came, and directly in the eye of the wind, such as there was, which had shifted to that quarter, we knew that he would have no great difficulty in getting aboard us again. Still we could not help feeling very anxious about him. The plan, however, proposed by Ben Yool struck us as likely to prove as effectual as any that could be conceived;--much more so than had the little _Dove_ herself appeared; for, as she did not measure more than twenty tons, she was not calculated by her size to command respect, especially as she had no guns on board, and we had only our rifles. Scarcely had the boat left the side of the schooner when the shrieks were repeated. They seemed louder, or at all events more distinct. We could no longer have any doubt that they were uttered by human beings in distress. Old Surley thought so too. He kept running about the deck in a state of great agitation, and then stretched out his neck, and howled in reply to the cry which reached his ears. We kept slowly gliding on under all