s the very greatest of those scoundrels
grinding his teeth and glaring your way at your elbow.

"What was the name of that cape, Darcantel, where the schooner was
destroyed? No, I won't be quiet; the colonel wants to hear all about it.
There's a good fellow, tell me!"

"Garotte Cape."

The listener slowly raised the mutilated hand, and put the finger with
the sapphire ring to his throat, evidently not liking the name of that
cape, for it caused a choking sensation to utter it--"Ho! Cape
Garotte!"

"Yes, sir; and Darcantel's father here once chartered a vessel, and went
all the way down there to explore the place, and was gone fifteen
months! Wasn't he, Darky?" said the boy, familiarly.

"Mouse, I tell you what it is, if you don't shut up that little flytrap
of yours, I'll make Rat lick you when you go on board!"

"Rat lick me?" said Tiny, as he jumped straight up in the cot; "I gave
him and Martin a black eye apiece only on our last boat-duty day for
saying your father, the doctor, had killed his brother-in-law in a
duel!"

"Hush, my dear little fellow! you did a very foolish thing. There, say
no more on that subject; it gives me pain, my Tiny. So talk on as much
as you like."

"My dear friend," exclaimed the lad, in a broken voice; as he plunged
through his net and put his arms around Darcantel, "I wouldn't grieve
you for the world; but do you suppose, little as I am, that I wouldn't
fight for the doctor, who is so kind to me, and has done so much for my
poor dear sweet mother?"

Here there was a sob as he wound his arms closer round his friend's
neck, and cried like a child, as he was.

"Well, never mind, Tiny; go to sleep, now! I am not angry. There, turn
in!"

"I won't speak another word to-night, Harry, for any soul
breathing--little fool that I am!"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur," said the colonel, in French, with a
slight quiver on his tongue, "but did your father really go all the way
down to Darien out of mere curiosity?"

"Yes, sir, he did go there to see if by any chance one of the pirates
had escaped; and he traveled, too, a good deal about among the Indians,
making inquiries."

"Ho! and did he pick up any information there?"

"Why, sir, I am not positive, but I believe that he got a hint that a
European had wandered over that country who had been wounded in the head
and hand, and was almost naked; but the natives could give him but very
meagre accounts. He continued on, however, down th