“Aye, we saw something of the fighting from the hilltops; but as it is no business of ours, I brought the men down, in case they might be wanted aboard.”

“Quite right, Scraggs.  You’re a judicious fellow to send on a dangerous expedition.  I’m not sure, however, that Gascoyne would thank you for leaving him to fight the savages alone.”

Manton chuckled as he said this, and Scraggs grinned maliciously as he replied: 

“Well, it can’t exactly be said that I’ve left him, seeing that I have not been with him since we parted aboard of this schooner; and as to his fightin’ the niggers alone, hasn’t he got ever so many hundred Christian niggers to help him to lick the others?”

“True,” said Manton, while a smile of contempt curled his lip.  “But here comes the breeze, and the sun wont be long behind it.  All the better for the work we’ve got to do.  Mind your helm there.  Here, lads, take a pull at the topsail halyards; and some of you get the nightcap off Long Tom.  I say, Mr. Scraggs, should we show them the red, by way of comforting their hearts?”

Scraggs shook his head dubiously.  “You forget the cruiser.  She has eyes aboard, and may chance to set them on that same red; in which case it’s likely she would show us her teeth.”

“And what then?” demanded Manton, “are you also growing chicken-hearted?  Besides,” he added, in a milder tone, “the cruiser is quietly at anchor on the other side of the island, and there’s not a captain in the British navy who could take a pinnace, much less a ship, through the reefs at the north end of the island without a pilot.”

“Well,” returned Scraggs, carelessly, “do as you please.  It’s all one to me.”

While the two officers were conversing, the active crew of the Foam were busily engaged in carrying out the orders of Manton; and the graceful schooner glided swiftly along the coast before the same breeze which urged the Talisman to the north end of the island.  The former, having few reefs to avoid, approached her destination much more rapidly than the latter, and there is no doubt that she would have arrived first on the scene of action had not the height and form of the cliffs prevented the wind from filling her sails on two or three occasions.

Meanwhile, in obedience to Manton’s orders, a great and very peculiar change was effected in the outward aspect of the Foam.  To one unacquainted with the character of the schooner, the proceedings of her crew must have seemed unaccountable as well as surprising.  The carpenter and his assistants were slung over the sides of the vessel upon which they plied their screwdrivers for a considerable time with great energy, but, apparently, with very little result.  In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, a long narrow plank was loosened, which, when stripped off, discovered a narrow line of bright scarlet running quite round the vessel, a little more than