‘Come, come,’ quoth I, ‘Paul Williamson, you will swing in your hammock to-night, for all that is come and gone.’ ‘Boat ahoy!’ said the voice a third time. ‘Sheer to port, and keep along that belt of surf on your starboard beam. Have you caught the dwarf?’ ‘No, confound him!’ I shouted; ‘and we thought we should never have got to the schooner again. Why did you not keep firing?’ To this no answer was given, and Edward Lanscriffe asked, in a low tone, which of our comrades it was who had hailed. This was a puzzler. We none of us knew the voice. ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp, ahoy!’ I shouted. ‘Halloo!’ was the reply. ‘Why the devil don’t you come aboard? Have you fallen asleep over your oars?’ ‘We can’t see,’ we replied, standing up, and peering into the darkness. ‘Show a light, man—show a light!’ Immediately a lantern gleamed ahead of us. We pulled towards it. It shone from a dark object. I was in the act of telling the men to lay on their oars, when grit, grit, grit! the boat’s keel scrunched upon the sand, and at the same time the lantern was extinguished. ‘Ho! ho! Do you want a pilot? I think you do, indeed,’ exclaimed the shrill, cracked voice we knew so well. ‘The dwarf, by God!’ ejaculated Paul Williamson. ‘I told you so. It is a demon, and we are bewitched.’ I was in a great rage. ‘You skulking vagabond,’ I shouted out, ‘wait till daylight to-morrow, and we’ll see whether an ounce of lead won’t catch that canoe of yours, quick as it is.’ To this there was no answer made, although we sat listening for near ten minutes. What was to be done? We hardly knew; but anything was better than lying idly where we were. The night breeze now struck cold and chill; the men had been overheated at their oars, and their teeth began to chatter. There was a very cordial response of ‘Amen,’ therefore, as I said, ‘I wish we had put a bottle of brandy into the boat.’ For half an hour or so we pulled at random, the men whispering and muttering to each other, when I saw a faint flash in the distance, and presently heard the report of a gun. ‘There goes the schooner, at length,’ I cried. The boat’s head was promptly put into the proper direction, and we recommenced our weary pull with something like energy. We must have been near the outward edge of the shoals, for the surf thundered loud, and great broken swells often came rolling past us in a multitude of uneven undulations. All at once the confounded voice of the dwarf hailed us. ‘You are going the wrong way, my brave fellows. If you expect to reach the schooner on that course, you must pull the boat round the world, and carry her over Asia.’ ‘Never mind the spiteful creature,’ I said, in a low tone; ‘he is but attempting to mislead us. It is his turn to-night; it will be ours to-morrow, when the sun rises.’ Ten minutes more elapsed, then another musket was discharged, almost due ahead. ‘See,’ I exclaimed, in great triumph; ‘we are keeping the exact course; we shall be on board in a jiffey.’