“You don’t want the canoe, do you?” said Bithery. “Why not send her adrift?” “I couldn’t do it, Captain,” I replied. “She’s as much to me as the _Lady Jane_ is to you. You’ll understand when I spin you the yarn.” “Very well,” said the skipper. “Get the canoe hoisted on deck, Mr. Jobling;” and the mate, with a gang of hands, got to work with such will that, in a few minutes, I had the satisfaction of seeing the trusty little craft, that had brought me through so many dangers, reposing peacefully on the deck. “Where did you get this canoe, Englefield?” asked Bithery, sniffing round her with a puzzled air. “I didn’t know they made this sort of craft in these parts. I’ve seen nothing but dug-outs.” “I built her myself,” I replied; “built her of bark and branches in the forest;” whereupon the skipper seized me by the arm and dragged me to the companion. “Come below and pitch us the yarn,” said he. “I am in the humour to believe anything, and my flesh is beginning to creep in anticipation.” So I went below, and having been furnished with a country cloth, put it on toga-wise, when I looked, as Bithery remarked, “like a Roman Emperor--a rather dirty one,” and thus sat down at the table. How sumptuous the cabin looked, with its polished wood, its red silk curtains, its swinging lamp, and the white cloth, and glittering table appointments! Quite spacious, too, after my tiny lair on the island. But I am afraid my attention was principally concentrated on the eatables--the ox tongue, the boiled fowls, the yellow Canary potatoes, and other unfamiliar delicacies, at which I found myself glaring with wolfish enjoyment. “My eye, Englefield,” exclaimed the Captain, as I sent up my plate for the fourth time, “you’ve got a pretty good twist on you. You won’t be long filling out at this rate.” “How are the Pereiras?” I asked, disregarding his remark. “Mister or Miss?” he inquired, eyeing me sideways, like a parrot examining a doubtful banana. “Both,” I replied. “Why, the fact is,” said he, “they have been worried to death about you. You see, there were all sorts of unpleasant rumours that seem to have reached them, I don’t quite know how, and made them very anxious and miserable; and then, only last week, we all got a very nasty knock. A fellow at Cape Coast (one of Miller Brothers’ people) bought a gold watch from some natives from the interior and he showed it to me. I noticed a Ramsgate jeweller’s name on the dial, and what I took to be your initials on the back--but you know what these infernal monograms are, all scrolls and flummery--so I bought it and showed it to Pereira, and he knew it at once. We couldn’t find out where the natives got it from, but there it was; and it so upset the Pereiras that they made up their minds to fit out an expedition and go up country to make inquiries.” “You don’t mean that Pereira was going himself?”