“When we got there,” continued he, “we saw a schooner sailing, and made it out with the glass to be the Antelope. We watched you as you sailed toward the Five Islands. You must have been on your second tack then. We could not imagine where you were going. Captain Corbet thought you didn’t know your way. I thought you were letting the vessel go wherever the wind might take you. As it happens, I was not very far wrong. “At last we saw you turn, and the performance of the schooner showed us all very plainly that you couldn’t sail her. It filled us with the deepest anxiety. We could have got a boat, but your course was so strange, that we delayed until we could see where you might finally bring up. We didn’t expect any accident exactly, but hoped that you would come nearer. At last you sailed so close to that headland that we thought you were lost. Immediately afterward you passed behind it from sight. We waited some time to see if you would reappear, but you did not. So we at once put off in the boat which belonged to a fisherman who lived near, and came here as fast as possible. The last time that you drifted off we saw you; but perhaps you were too excited to see us--or perhaps we were too far off to be seen very easily. “And now,” concluded Mr. Long, “I’ve found you again, and it’s my fixed determination not to let any of you go out of my sight. You’re all a set of Jonahs. The only comfort is, that you come out all right at last.” “I’m sure, Mr. Long,” remonstrated Bart, “you oughtn’t to blame us. It wasn’t our fault. I’d much rather not drift away if I could help it. I don’t enjoy going about in the fog, or among these tides. I’m sure Bruce don’t. Neither does Arthur, nor Tom, nor Phil.” “Blame you? Of course I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Long. “How can I? It wasn’t your fault, of course. I only mean that your fortunes have been very peculiar. I don’t know but, if I believed in omens, I’d say that your black flag up there has brought us all this run of bad luck. But come, we’ve been thoughtful about you. We knew you’d be starving, and so we brought along with us something for you to eat.” “Starving! Mr. Long, we’re in that condition that we could eat horseshoes.” With a good-natured laugh, Mr. Long turned away, and jumping into the boat, handed up the eatables that he had brought for them.. XVIII. _Wanderings about the Beach.--Science and Sport.--Back Home.--Frightful Tale of Poison.--A Visit to the Afflicted._