eed, and preserve my beloved ones."

_Sybil._--"Come, Madame, come, see how active the little ones are. Think
how charming to be safe up there, think how lucky we are to have Smart
and the dear captain to help us. Look at Otty with all the guns running
like a hare, and all the little girls flying like lapwings. Come,
Madame, come quickly."

So we ran about in every direction, and, collecting everything that was
useful, we left our friendly shelter and took refuge on the isolated
rock before-mentioned.

There was some brushwood at the top, and two or three old weather-beaten
palm trees, these afforded us most welcome shelter.

It was weary work getting to the top, but when once there we hauled up
many of our things by ropes, and some of us had time to return to the
cavern and bring away a rope ladder, with several other valuable
acquisitions that, had we been hurried, we should not have recollected
them, also quantities of water.

To our surprise, we saw nothing of Smart after Hargrave's first scream;
he disappeared, and we were all upon the rock but Madame when we missed
him, requiring his strong arm to help her up.

Not all the assistance we could give her seemed likely to get her to the
top, she was in so nervous a state. In vain she implored us to leave her
to her fate. Nothing but seeing us all begin to scramble down again to
share it with her made her at last, in a fit of desperation, reach the
top. When there, she sunk on the ground helpless, and we laid her at the
foot of one of the palm trees, where she declared she would breathe her
last sigh. The three elder girls now collected all the precious drops of
water, putting them under bushes, covering them with sand, to prevent
the powerful sun from evaporating the smallest quantity of such precious
liquid.

Schillie and the boys prepared the guns and pistols, putting everything
"handy," as they called it, for a siege. We snatched a hasty meal, not
knowing when we might have another opportunity; then laying ourselves
down, we hid snugly in the brushwood, seeing everything, yet utterly
unseen ourselves.

_Gatty._--"It's jolly fun being perched up here seeing all the country
round. But what is the reason we have come up?"

_Schillie_ (shortly).--"You were ordered to, that's enough."

_Gatty_ (half whispering to the girls).--"The bear is out to-day. If I
don't mind I shall get a scratch from its claws."

_Schillie_ (overhearing).--"Bear or not, Miss Gatty,