departure of the Ithaca--the rechristened schooner
which was to carry them away to an unguessed fate.

The voyage from Singapore to the Islands was without
incident. Virginia took a keen delight in watching the
Malays and lascars at their work, telling von Horn that
she had to draw upon her imagination but little to
picture herself a captive upon a pirate ship--the half
naked men, the gaudy headdress, the earrings, and the
fierce countenances of many of the crew furnishing only
too realistically the necessary savage setting.

A week spent among the Pamarung Islands disclosed no
suitable site for the professor's camp, nor was it
until they had cruised up the coast several miles north
of the equator and Cape Santang that they found a tiny
island a few miles off the coast opposite the mouth of
a small river--an island which fulfilled in every
detail their requirements.

It was uninhabited, fertile and possessed a clear,
sweet brook which had its source in a cold spring in
the higher land at the island's center. Here it was
that the Ithaca came to anchor in a little harbor,
while her crew under von Horn, and the Malay first
mate, Bududreen, accompanied Professor Maxon in search
of a suitable location for a permanent camp.

The cook, a harmless old Chinaman, and Virginia were
left in sole possession of the Ithaca.