Page:The Catalpa Expedition (1897).djvu/173

Rh "Lad," said he, "you've hooked it (ran away) from some ship, and I advise you to get out. This is no place to lay."

Then Anthony told him he was master of a ship, but the man was not to be convinced.

"I believe you're after Kenneth Brown," he said. Brown was a man who was at that time under arrest for the murder of his wife.

Captain Anthony concluded it was useless to attempt a further explanation, and asked the man if he would tell him the best way to get out with his boat.

"I'm an ex-prisoner myself," said the man, "and I knew you were after somebody." He seemed disposed to assist the captain, to the relief of the latter, for if he had started to join his companions, Anthony would have been alarmed to an extent which might have made it necessary to resort to desperate means for his detention.

The visitor then told the captain that he must be very sure and keep close to Garden Island. There was a dangerous reef farther out, and it would be sure destruction to the boat to attempt to go out that way.

"But that's the way I came," said the captain. As he looked out, he saw the breakers making white water on the coral reef. He must have been carried completely over it by the blind rollers the previous night. He now realized that his escape had been providential.

Then the man said, in reply to questions, that