join, being a warrior of some note, and the sister had come along, in common with some fifty other women; the rank of Unus and Peggy not being sufficient to attract attention to their proceedings.  Waally had postponed this, which he intended for the great enterprise of a very turbulent life, to the most favourable season of the year.  There was a period of a few weeks every summer, when the trades blew much less violently than was usually the case, and when, indeed, it was no unusual thing to have shifts of wind, as well as light breezes.  All this the Indians perfectly well understood, for they were bold navigators, when the sizes and qualities of their vessels were considered.  As it appeared, the voyage from the group to Rancocus Island, a distance of fully a hundred leagues, was effected without any accident, and the while of that formidable force was safely landed at the very spot where Betts had encamped on his arrival out with the colonists.  Nearly a month had been passed in exploring the mountain, the first considerable eminence most of the Indians had ever beheld; and in making their preparations for further proceedings.  During that time, hundreds had seen Vulcan’s Peak, as well as the smoke of the volcano, though the reef, with all its islands, lay too low to be discerned from such a distance.  The Peak was now the great object to be attained, for there it was universally believed that Betto (meaning Betts) and his companions had concealed themselves and their much-coveted treasures.  Rancocus Island was well enough, and Waally made all his plans for colonizing it at once, but the other, and distant mountain, no doubt was the most desirable territory to possess, or white men would not have brought their women so far in order to occupy it.

As a matter of course, Unus and Peggy learned the nature of the intended proceedings.  The last might have been content to wait for the slower movements of the expedition, had she not ascertained that threats of severely punishing the two deserters, one of whom was her own husband, had been heard to fall from the lips of the dread Waally himself.  No sooner, therefore, did this faithful Indian girl become mistress of the intended plan, than she gave her brother no peace until he consented to put off into the ocean with her, in a canoe she had brought from home, and which was her own property.  Had not Unus been disaffected to his new chief, this might not so easily have been done, but the young Indian was deadly hostile to Waally, and was a secret friend of Ooroony:  a state of feeling which disposed him to desert the former, at the first good opportunity.