“That speech only shows your ignorance of the usages of ships-of-war.  Know you not that the nature of the trade in which I am engaged requires me to be strong-handed, and that the opinion of a commander in the British navy as to how many hands are sufficient for the navigation of a trading-schooner does not accord with mine?—­a difference of opinion which may possibly result in his relieving me of a few of my best men when I can ill afford to spare them.  And, by the way,” said Gascoyne, pausing as they gained the brow of an eminence that commanded a view of the rich woodland on one side and the sea on the other, “I had better take precautions against such a mischance.  Here, Dick” (taking the man aside and whispering to him), “go back to the schooner, my lad, and tell the mate to send ten of the best hands ashore with provisions and arms.  Let them squat where they choose on land, only let them see to it that they keep well out of sight and hearing until I want them.  And now, Master Henry, lead the way; John Bumpus and I will follow at your heel like a couple of faithful dogs.”

The scene through which young Henry Stuart now led his seafaring companions was of that rich, varied, and beautiful character which is strikingly characteristic of those islands of the Pacific which owe their origin to volcanic agency.  Unlike the low coral islets, this island presented every variety of the boldest mountain scenery, and yet, like them, it displayed all the gorgeous beauty of a rich tropical vegetation.  In some places the ground had been cracked and riven into great fissures and uncouth caverns of the wildest description, by volcanoes apparently long since extinct.  In others the landscape presented the soft beauty of undulating, grove-like scenery, in which, amid a profusion of bright green herbage, there rose conspicuous the tall stems and waving plumes of the cocoanut palm; the superb and umbrageous ko-a, with its laurel-green leaves and sweet blossoms; the kukui, or candlenut tree; the fragrant sandal-wood, and a variety of other trees and shrubs for which there are no English names.

Hundreds of green paroquets with blue heads and red breasts, turtle-doves, wood-pigeons, and other birds enlivened the groves with sound, if not with melody, and the various lakelets and pools were alive with wild ducks and water-hens.

The route by which the party traveled led them first across a country of varied and beautiful aspect; then it conducted them into wild mountain fastnesses, among which they clambered, at times with considerable difficulty.  Ere long they passed into a dreary region where the ancient fires that upheaved the island from the deep seemed to have scorched the land into a condition of perpetual desolation.  Blackened and bare lava rocks, steep volcanic ridges and gorges, irregular truncated cones, deep-mouthed caves and fissures, overhanging arches, natural bridges, great tunnels and ravines, surrounded them on every side, and so