is she?
Hasn't died on the v'yage, has she? D'ye hear there, ye infarnal
Blunt?"

The captain's face was troubled, and his head dropped down on his breast
without replying; but one of the scoundrels at his side struck him a
brutal blow with the back of his knife-hilt on the mouth, and jerking
up, he said, with an effort,

"Yes, we have a female passenger on board, with a helpless child; but I
pray you, in God's name, to leave the innocent woman in peace. You've
robbed and ruined me and my poor old wife--turn me adrift if you like,
drown or hang me, but don't harm the poor lady."

The tears blinded him as he spoke, and mingled with the bloody stream
which trickled down his cheeks. The ruffian's ugly face and bloodshot
eyes lighted up with a devilish and sinister satisfaction as the skipper
began his appeal, but before he had well finished speaking he broke in,

"Avast your jaw! will ye? You'll have enough to look out for your own
gullet, my lad, without mindin' any body else's; so turn to and say your
prayers afore eight bells is struck, because there's sharks off
Jamaiky."

Then addressing his own scoundrelly myrmidons, he exclaimed, "Look out
sharp for that old chap, my lads, while I goes to sarch for the woman
passenger!" As he turned, however, to leave the cabin, one of his
subordinates began to rummage about in a locker, when the burly brute
said, "Tonio, don't get to drinkin' too airly, boy, for ye know it's
agin the law till the prize is snug in harbor, or sunk, as the case may
be."

"_Si, senor_," replied the man, with a nod and a grin, and he resumed
his seat again; but no sooner had their leader left the cabin than a
bottle and glasses were placed upon the table, and they fell to with a
will, complimenting the bound and wounded prisoner by pitching the last
drops from their tumblers into his face.

CHAPTER VI.

DANGER.

"What tale do the roaring ocean
And the night wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?
And why do the roaring ocean
And the night wind, wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the color from her cheek?"

In all this time so little noise had been made that even the watch
below, in the brig's forecastle, were snoozing away without a dream of
danger; though, had one of them shown his nose above the fore-peak, he
would have either been knocked down and murdered like the