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236 over to the breeze and turned toward the embrace of the fog.

As the first of the wisps of mist streamed along the side of the schooner the Portuguese chuckled. For he knew the gunboat would return to his bungalow soon, and would find the bird flown! Truly there were the elements of humour in the situation.

With a heaving deck under his feet, plenty to eat and drink on board, and a crew of cut-throats on whom he could rely to do his bidding, Moniz was not deeply concerned. He had been in worse straits than that before. It just made one more item on his balance sheet against the forces of civilization, and, he reflected grimly, might drive him to go a little further than he ever had done. Meanwhile his chief object was to keep out of the way of the interfering people on the warship. That, however, thanks to the start he had obtained in the mist, was easy; for a man who travels by sea leaves no footprints.

He kept on his northern course, beyond Tao Tao, for twenty-four hours without any very definite object in view, and then turned the schooner round. Two or three courses were open to him, but at any rate the Sulu Sea was now an unattractive neighborhood so far as he was concerned. There were possibilities along the coast of Borneo, but he had a fancy to strike southeast and try his luck among the countless islands off the coast of Australia. For