MOKE CRUISING AFTER PIRATES. 323 



largest island. Gradually, however, the morning grey 

 cool feel of the approaching day stole over the scene, 

 and as it did I kept quietly creeping in, until I reached 

 the very centre of the passage. 



Presently, close under the rocks, a junk was seen, 

 moving cautiously in the shadow of the cliffs towards 

 the further entrance. Early as I was, they were 

 equally on the qui vive, and the whole crew managed 

 to escape to the shore before I caught the junk. This 

 proved to be the very pirate craft which had captured 

 the girls ; so far so good, I thought. Now, to trace 

 these unhappy fair ones. A deep bay lay immediately 

 abreast of Tooni-ang, at the head of which, and faced 

 by shoal water and a long flat island, a town with about 

 a thousand inhabitants lay almost entirely concealed 

 by a prominent woody point, and the island men- 

 tioned. I knew this to be a den of thieves, and from 

 what the father of the girls had gathered, and otherwise 

 conjectured during his interview with the pirates, it 

 appeared more than probable that to this place the 

 prisoners had been taken. When passing a cove, a 

 junk hove in sight, inshore, and on my bearing down 

 for her, was run on shore, and a dozen men or so 

 skedaddled and made off into the bushes as hard as 

 they could. This was my friend the fisherman's own 

 craft ; he nearly stood on his head with joy. I don't 



