n object of bitter
enmity, and they looked forward with pleasure to his destruction, which
his present confinement they considered but the precursor of.

"Hist! Massa Francisco!" said a low voice near to where Francisco sat
on the chest. Francisco turned round and beheld the Krouman, his old
friend.

"Ah! Pompey, are you all still on board?" said Francisco.

"All! no," replied the man, shaking his head; "some die--some get away--
only four Kroumen left. Massa Francisco, how you come back again?
Everybody tink you dead. I say no, not dead--ab charm with him--ab
book."

"If that was my charm, I have it still," replied Francisco, taking the
Bible out of his vest; for, strange to say, Francisco himself had a kind
of superstition relative to that Bible, and had put it into his bosom
previous to the attack made by the pirates.

"Dat very good, Massa Francisco; den you quite safe. Here come
Johnson--he very bad man. I go away."

In the meantime Cain had retired to his cabin with feelings scarcely to
be analysed. He was in a bewilderment. Notwithstanding the wound he
had received by the hand of Francisco, he would never have sanctioned
Hawkhurst putting him on shore on a spot which promised nothing but a
lingering and miserable death. Irritated as he had been by the young
man's open defiance, he loved him--loved him much more than he was aware
of himself; and when he had recovered sufficiently from his wound, and
had been informed where Francisco had been sent on shore, he quarrelled
with Hawkhurst, and reproached him bitterly and sternly, in language
which Hawkhurst never forgot or forgave. The vision of the starving lad
haunted Cain, and rendered him miserable. His affection for him, now
that he was, as he supposed, lost for ever, increased with tenfold
force; and since that period Cain had never been seen to smile. He
became more gloomy, more ferocious than ever, and the men trembled when
he appeared on deck.

The apparition of Francisco after so long an interval, and in such an
unexpected quarter of the globe, acted, as we have before described,
upon Cain. When he was taken to the boat he was still confused in his
ideas, and it was not until they were nearly on board that he perceived
that this young man was indeed at his side. He could have fallen on his
neck and kissed him: for Francisco had become to him a capture more
prized than all the wealth of the Indies. But one pure, good feeling
was unext