which will float it if the third should get filled."

"Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?" asked Nigel.

"It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because
it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things
better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand
how to manage sails of every kind?"

"If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor," returned
our hero.

"That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position
the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range
for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers."

Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the
negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder.

A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel
had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready
to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican,
which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies
of North America among the Red Indians,--for this singular being seemed
to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet
very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three
canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides
several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did
not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were
of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the