d would
travel on to Canton and join him there when she found an opportunity.
The journey was accomplished at night, by very short stages at first,
but by increasing distances as Percy gained strength. During the daytime
the lads lay hid in woods or jungles, while their companion went into
the village and purchased food. They struck the river many miles above
Canton, and the pilot, going down first to a village on its banks,
bargained for a boat to take him and two women down to the city.

The lads went on board at night and took their places in the little
cabin formed of bamboos and covered with mats in the stern of the boat,
and remained thus sheltered not only from the view of people in boats
passing up or down the stream, but from the eyes of their own boatmen.

After two days' journey down the river without incident, they arrived
off Canton, where the British fleet was still lying while negotiations
for peace were being carried on with the authorities at Pekin. Peeping
out between the mats, the lads caught sight of the English warships,
and, knowing that there was now no danger, they dashed out of the cabin,
to the surprise of the native boatmen, and shouted and waved their arms
to the distant ships.

In ten minutes they were alongside the _Perseus_, when they were hailed
as if restored from the dead. The pilot was very handsomely rewarded by
the English authorities for his kindness to the prisoners, and was
highly satisfied with the result of his proceedings, which more than
doubled the little capital with which he had retired from business. Jack
Fothergill and Percy Adcock declare that they have never since eaten
chicken without thinking of their Christmas fare on the morning of their
escape from the hands of the Chinese pirates.

THE END.

[Illustration: Blackie & Son's Books for Young People]

_By the Author of "John Herring," "Mehalah," &c._

=Grettir the Outlaw:= A Story of Iceland. By S. Baring-Gould.
With 10 full-page Illustrations by M. Zeno Diemer and a
Coloured Map. Crown 8vo, cloth elegant, olivine edges, _6s_.

A work of special interest, not only because of the high rank which
Mr. Baring-Gould has of late years acquired by his brilliant series
of novels, _Mehalah_, _John Herring_, _Court Royal_, &c., but
because of his earlier won reputation as a historian and explorer
of folk-legends and popular beliefs. In the story of Grettir, both
the art of the novelis