ck to the
brig. And, Dominique, see all ready for sheeting home and hoisting away
the moment that I join you. There is a little breeze coming, and it is
high time that we were off. Now, Juan, are you ready with the auger?"

"Quite ready, senor," answered another voice.

"Then come below with me, and let us get this job over," said the first
voice, and immediately upon this I heard the footsteps of two people
descending the schooner's companion ladder. Some ten minutes later I
heard the footsteps returning, and presently the two Spaniards were on
deck. Then there came a slight pause, as though the pirate captain had
halted to take a last look round.

"Are you quite sure, Juan, that the prisoners are all securely lashed?"
asked he.

"Absolutely, senor," answered Juan. "I lashed them myself, and, as you
are aware, I am not in the habit of bungling the job. They will all go
to the bottom together, the living as well as the dead!"

"Bueno!" commented the captain. "Ah, here comes the breeze! Aboard you
go, Juan, amigo. Cast off, fore and aft, Dominique, and hoist away your
fore-topmast staysail."

Another moment and the two miscreants had gone.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE SINKING OF THE "DOLORES."

As the sound of the hanks travelling up the brig's fore-topmast stay
reached my ear I murmured cautiously to the carpenter.

"Is it safe for me to move now, Chips?"

"No, sir, no," he replied, in a low, strained whisper; "don't move a
muscle for your life, Mr Grenvile, until I tell you, sir. The brig's
still alongside, and that unhung villain of a skipper's standin' on the
rail, holdin' on to a swifter, and lookin' down on our decks as though,
even now, he ain't quite satisfied that his work is properly finished."

At this moment I felt a faint breath of air stirring about me, and heard
the small, musical lap of the tiny wavelets alongside as the new breeze
arrived. The brig's canvas and our own rustled softly aloft; and the
cheeping of sheaves and parrals, the rasping of hanks, the flapping of
canvas, and the sound of voices aboard the pirate craft gradually
receded, showing that she was drawing away from us.

When, as I supposed, the brig had receded from us a distance of fully a
hundred feet, the carpenter said, this time in his natural voice:

"Now, Mr Grenvile, you may safely move, sir, and the sooner you do so
the better, for them villains have scuttled us, and I don't doubt but
what the water's pour