"The next prize we take I hope that we shall find some cooks on board; we must secure one for our mess," observed Toby, helping himself to one of the dishes Jacotot had sent aft. I had not been long on board before I found out, what seemed to have escaped the midshipmen's observation when they hired the boat, that the rigging was sadly rotten, and that she herself was in a somewhat leaky condition. They, however, only laughed at the leaking. "It will keep the boat sweet, and give Jack Nobs and Auguste something to do," observed Master Trundle, cocking his eye at me. Notwithstanding this, we stood on, the breeze shifting conveniently in our favour till nightfall, when we put into a small harbour, the entrance to which our pilot for a wonder knew. The next day we continued our course, landing in a bay, up which we ran to have a look at the country, and to get some goat's milk and fruit. We found a small farm, the only white people being an old-fashioned Frenchman, with a somewhat dingy wife, and two grown-up daughters. All the rest of the people were either brown Orientals or black Africans. The old Frenchman was very civil, merely shrugged his shoulders when he saw our flag, and observed that it was the fortune of war, and that, as we were the most numerous, France had lost no honour, though she lost the dependency. He supplied us for a trifle with a bottle of goat's milk, and as many melons, pines, and mangoes as we could manage to eat. He politely assisted in taking them down to the boat. As he did so he looked round the horizon seaward, and up at the sky. "Messieurs will do well to remain at anchor for a few hours longer," he observed. "We are going to have a change of weather. It may be slight, or it may be very great, and you will be more content on shore than at sea." We thanked him for his advice, but the midshipmen asserting that if we stopped they might not be able to rejoin their ship at the right time, it was disregarded. On standing out again, however, we saw that the hope of getting round the island was vain, and that our surest course would be to return by the way we had come. The weather soon changed; ugly clouds collected and came sweeping up from the west and south, though as yet but little wind filled our sails. "I am afraid that we are going to have a storm," I observed. "Oh, no fear; I don't think that there will be anything in it," answered Toby Trundle. "I think that there'll be a great deal in it, and I would advise you gentlemen to make the best of your way back to the bay we have just left," said O'Carroll.