The rate of sailing of the light-house boat, running before a brisk trade wind, could not be much less than nine miles in the hour.  About eleven o’clock, therefore, the lively craft shot through one of the narrow channels of the islets, and entered the haven.  In a few minutes all three of the adventurers were on the little wharf where the light-house people were in the habit of landing.  Rose proceeded to the house, while Harry and Jack remained to secure the boat.  For the latter purpose a sort of slip, or little dock, had been made, and when the boat was hauled into it, it lay so snug that not only was the craft secure from injury, but it was actually hid from the view of all but those who stood directly above it.

“This is a snug berth for the boat, Jack,” observed the mate, when he had hauled it into the place mentioned, “and by unstepping the mast, a passer-by would not suspect such a craft of lying in it.  Who knows what occasion there may be for concealment, and I’ll e’en do that thing.”

To a casual listener, Harry, in unstepping the mast, might have seemed influenced merely by a motiveless impulse; but, in truth, a latent suspicion of Jack’s intentions instigated him, and as he laid the mast, sprit and sail on the thwarts, he determined, in his own mind, to remove them all to some other place, as soon as an opportunity for doing so unobserved should occur.  He and Jack now followed Rose to the house.

The islets were found deserted and tenantless.  Not a human being had entered the house since Rose left it, the evening she had remained so long ashore, in company with her aunt and the Senor Montefalderon.  This our heroine knew from the circumstance of finding a slight fastening of the outer door in the precise situation in which she had left it with her own hands.  At first a feeling of oppression and awe prevailed with both Harry and Rose, when they recollected the fate of those who had so lately been tenants of the place; but this gradually wore off, and each soon got to be more at home.  As for Jack, he very coolly rummaged the lockers, as he called the drawers and closets of the place, and made his preparations for cooking a very delicious repast, in which callipash and callipee were to be material ingredients.  The necessary condiments were easily enough found in that place, turtle being a common dish there, and it was not long before steams that might have quickened the appetite of an alderman filled the kitchen.  Rose rummaged, too, and found a clean table-cloth, plates, glasses, bowls, spoons, and knives; in a word, all that was necessary to spread a plain but plentiful board.  While all this was doing, Harry took some fishing-tackle, and proceeded to a favourable spot among the rocks.  In twenty minutes he returned with a fine mess of that most delicious little fish that goes by the very unpoetical name of “hog-fish,” from the circumstance of its giving a grunt not unlike that of a living porker, when rudely drawn from its proper element.  Nothing was now wanting to not only a comfortable, but to what was really a most epicurian meal, and Jack just begged the lovers to have patience for an hour or so, when he promised them dishes that even New York could not furnish.