CHAPTER X.
Miss Rogers begins her story--An interview on the high seas--Drifting to destruction--The ship disappears--Tortured by thirst--A fearful sight--Cannibals on the watch--The blacks quarrel over the girls--Courting starvation--Yamba goes for help--A startling announcement--Preparations for the fight--Anxious moments--A weird situation--"Victory, victory"-- A melodramatic attitude--The girls get sore feet.
At our next interview, thanks to Yamba's good offices, both girls were looking very much better than when I first saw them; and then, consumed with natural curiosity and a great desire to learn something of the outside world, I begged them to tell me their story.
The first thing I learnt was that they were two sisters, named Blanche and Gladys Rogers, their respective ages being nineteen and seventeen years.

Both girls were extremely pretty, the particular attraction about Gladys being her lovely violet eyes.

It was Blanche who, with much hysterical emotion, told me the story of their painful experience, Gladys occasionally prompting her sister with a few interpolated words.
Here, then, is Blanche Rogers's story, told as nearly as possible in her own words.

Of course it is absurd to suppose that I can reproduce _verbatim_ the fearful story told by the unfortunate girl.
"My sister and I are the daughters of Captain Rogers, who commanded a 700- ton barque owned by our uncle." [I am not absolutely certain whether the girls were the daughters of the captain or the owner .-- L.

de R.] "We were always very anxious, even as children, to accompany our dear father on one of his long trips, and at length we induced him to take us with him when he set sail from Sunderland [not certain, this] in the year 1868 [or 1869], with a miscellaneous cargo bound for Batavia [or Singapore].
The voyage out was a very pleasant one, but practically without incident--although, of course, full of interest to us.