“My son’s friend, the hermit of Rakata,” said the captain to his second mate, “will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he returns.”

“Looks like it, sir,” said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened volcano.  “Do you expect ’em back soon, sir?”

“Yes—­time’s about up now.  I shouldn’t wonder if they reach Batavia before us.”

Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship.  It was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen Holbein’s father, and her self-constituted parents did not relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as a daughter.

“Why not bring this man who claims to be her father here?” asked the perplexed Holbein.

“Because—­because, p’raps he won’t come,” answered the puzzled mariner, who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his son’s orders.  “Besides,” he continued, “the man does not claim to be anything at all.  So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin’ hopes that ain’t to be realised.”

“He is right in that,” said Mrs. Holbein, “and we must be just as careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy.  As your son says, it may be a mistake after all.  We must not open our lips to her about it.”

“Right you are, madam,” returned the captain.  “Mum’s the word; and we’ve only got to say she’s goin’ to visit one of your old friends in Anjer—­which’ll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o’ the chief hotel there is a great friend o’ yours, and we’ll take Kathy to her straight.  Besides, the trip will do her health a power o’ good, though I’m free to confess it don’t need no good to be done to it, bein’ A.1 at the present time.  Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an’ I’ll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound—­with her father, if he’s him; without him if he isn’t.”

With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein objections.  With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief anxiety being, as he himself said, “to give her reasons for wishin’ her to go without tellin’ lies.”

“Wouldn’t you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?” He had almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate.

“Oh!  I should like it so much,” said Kathleen, clasping her little hands and raising her large eyes to the captain’s face.

“Dear child!” said the captain to himself.  Then aloud, “Well, I’ll take you.”

“But I—­I fear that father and mother would not like me to go—­perhaps.”