Foster. But, Foster, just look at the tip of Flat Rock showing up already. It's going to be a dead low tide, and----'

'Don't you dare now! Ah, I know what you're going to say. No, I won't have it. Leastways I won't argy over it. And don't you disobey orders--not if all the crayfish in Australy was a runnin' up out o' the water, and climbin' trees.' Then, screwing his features up into an affectation of great wrath, he shuffled away again.

Tom's face fell, and again a heavy sigh escaped him, as he looked at the shimmering sea, and saw that beyond the bar it was as smooth as a mountain lake. Then he quietly opened the Venetian shutters of the dining-room, and let the bright sunlight stream in.

'It's no use,' he said to himself, 'I can't work this morning. I'll try and think a bit whether I shall go or not.'

Over the mantel in the dining-room was a marine picture. It was but rudely painted in water-colours--perhaps by some seaman's rough hand,--and the lapse of five and twenty years had dimmed it sadly; but to Tom's mind it was the finest painting in the world, and redolent of wild adventure and romance. It showed as a background the shore of a tropical island, the hills clothed with jungle, and the yellow beach lined with palm trees, while in the foreground the blue rollers of the ocean churned into froth against a long curve of coral reef, on which lay a man-of-war, with the surf leaping high over her decks, and with main and mizzen-masts gone. On the left of the picture was a beautiful white-painted brig, with old-fashioned rolling topsails and with her mainyard aback; and between her and the wreck were a number of boats crowded with men in uniform, escaping from the ship.

Often when the house was silent had Tom, even when a boy of ten, stolen into the room, and, sitting cross-legged on the rug, gazed longingly at the painting which, to his boyish imagination, seemed to live, ay, and speak to him in a wild symphony of crashing surf and swaying palm trees, mingling with the cries of the sailors and the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistles. Then, too, his eyes would linger over the inscription that, in two lines, ran along the whole length of the foot of the picture, and he would read it over and over again to himself gloatingly, and let his mind revel in visions of what he would yet see when he grew old enough to sail on foreign seas, as his father and his uncle Fred Hemsley had done. This is what the inscription said:--

'The Wreck of the Dutch warship Samarang on the coast of Timor Laut; and the Rescue of her Crew by the English brig Huntress, of Sydney, commanded by Mr. William Ford, and owned by Frederick Hemsley, Esquire, of Amboyna; on the morning of May 4, 1836.'

*      *      *      *      *

Half an hour later old Foster clattered suddenly along the verandah, peered into the schoolroom, and then into the dining-room, where Tom sat in a chair--still gazing at the picture.

'Rouse ye, rouse ye, Master Tom. Your eyes are better than mine. Here, look'--and he placed Mr. Wallis's telescope in the boy's hand--'look over there beyond Kooringa Rock. 'Tis a drifting boat, I believe. Kate tells me that it was in sight an hour ago, before your father and Master Jack went away, and yet the foolish creature never told me.'

Tom took the glass--an old-fashioned telescope, half a fathom long, and steadied it against a verandah post.

'Have you got her?' asked old Foster.

'Yes, yes,' answered the boy, quickly, his hand shaking with excitement; 'I can see her, Foster. There are people in her ... yes, yes, and they are pulling. I can see the oars dipping quite plainly. What boat can it be?'

'Shipwrecked people, o' course. What would any other boat be doin' out there, a comin' in from the eastward? Can you see which way she is heading?'

'Straight in for the bar, Foster.'

'And nothing but a steamer could stem the current now, with the tide runnin' out at six knots; an' more than that, they'll capsize as soon as they get abreast o' Flat Rock, and be aten up by the sharks. Master Tom, we must man our boat somehow, and go out to them. Then we can pilot them in to the bit o' beach under Pilot's Hill, if the current is too strong for us to get back here. But how we're going to launch the boat, let alone man her, is the trouble; there's not a man about the place but myself, and it will take the best part of an hour to send Kate or any other o' the women to the town and back.'

'Never mind that, Foster,' cried the boy; 'look down there on the rocks--there are Combo, and Fly, and some other black fellows spearing fish! They will help us to launch the boat, and come with us too.'

'Then run, lad; run as hard as ye can, and bring them up to the boatshed, an' I'll follow as soon as I get what I want.'

Seizing his cap, Tom darted away down the hill, across the beach, and then splashed through the shallow pools of water on the reef towards the party of aboriginals; whilst old Foster, calling out to Kate and the other women to get food ready against his return, in case it might be wanted for starving people, hurriedly seized some empty bottles and filled them with water; then, thrusting them into Jack's fishing-basket, which hung on the wall of the back verandah, he followed Tom down to the boatshed, where in a few minutes he was joined by the lad himself, and four stalwart, naked black fellows and their gins, all equally as excited as the old sailor.

The boat was a long, heavy whaleboat, but she was soon run out of the dark shed under the hill, and then into the water.

THE BOAT WAS SOON RUN OUT OF THE DARK SHED.

'Jump in, everybody,' said old Foster, seizing the steer oar, and swinging the boat's head round to the open sea.

CHAPTER II

CAPTAIN RAMON CASALLE AND HIS MEN

Under the five oars--Tom tugging manfully at the bow, though still panting with his previous exertions--the boat soon cleared the entrance to the little rocky cove, which, during the old convict days, had been made into a fairly safe boat harbour--the only one, except an unfrequented beach under Pilot's Hill, for many miles along the coast. Five minutes after the oars had touched the water she was fairly racing seaward, for she was in the full run of the ebbing tide as it swept through the sandbanks and reefs which lined the narrow bar. Then, as the water deepened, and the current lost its strength, Foster shielded his eyes with his hands from the blazing sun, and looking ahead, tried to discern the approaching boat.

'I can't see her anywhere!' he exclaimed presently; 'easy there, pulling. Perhaps she's in a line