The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

128 THE MUTINY ON THE FLYING CLOUD, It would be possible for the weaker members of the party to find conceal- ment somewhere among the spurs of the mountain; but any such arrange- ment as this, whilst highly inconvenient, would be open to many other disad- vantages. And Grant could not help thinking of what their fate would be, supposing that whilst lying thus concealed the men of the party should be _ attacked and made captive or slain. Were such a catastrophe as this to befall them, the fate of those poor women and children would be little better than a living death ; left as they would be to shift for themselves unaided, unpro- tected, and their hearts wrung with anguish for the loss of those to whom they were naturally in the habit of looking for help and protection, and with little or no chance of ultimate escape from their island prison. To add to the difficulties of the situation, the little party were so short handed that to construct such.a fortified habitation as Blake had suggested would be, if not an absolute impossibility, a work of.such time and labor that for all practical purposes it might as well be unattempted. This was no case of ordinary difficulty ; it was not a difficulty which could be overcome by the skilful and judicious application of a practically unlimited supply of manual labor. And almost for the first time in his life the engineer found himself confronted with a question which he was unable to satisfactorily answer. Whilst the engineer was still revolving this difficult matter in his mind the raft arrived at her usual berth at Grant Island, and her cargo was as rapidly as possible discharged ; after which she sailed at once for the western settlement. Here the unexpected appearance of Captain Blake and Rob Manners was greeted with every manifestation of surprise and delight ; and the former had, as a matter of course, to recount to his interested friends the whole story of his sojourn upon, and escape from the island upon which the pair had been landed. ‘The ladies. were naturally most anxious to learn the latest news concern- ing Miss Stanley; and the-wary skipper, whilst telling them what little he knew about her, did his best to allay their fears with regard to that young lady, carefully concealing his own somewhat gloomy anticipations as to her future. And so successfully did he manage this business that Mrs. Henderson’s heart was considerably lightened of the load which had for so long a time been secretly pressing upon it. As soon as it could be done withotit exciting suspicion in the minds of the ladies, Grant contrived upon one pretext or another to draw away all the male members of the party, toawwhom forthwith he disclosed the alarming intelligence which Captain Blake had brought to the island with him ; point- ing out to them the new danger which thus threatened the very existence of them all, and earnestly begging them to give the matter their most serious consideration. Suggestions were, of course, at once offered in plenty, but they all pos- sessed one very serious drawback : they lacked practicability. The least unpromising of them all was that of Captain Blake, who boldly advocated the abandonment of the scheme for building a vessel, and | ) a) Fy S| (E( 0) AA) Eboo