captain, send me for the boat. I can swim like
a duck, and it's not a hundred yards from here."

_Mother._--"My dear children, the sharks."

_Oscar._--"I don't mind them, Mother."

_Gatty._--"They will have a good mouthful if they swallow me; and if I
am as troublesome inside a shark as you, little Mother, say I sometimes
am here, I shall not agree with him at all."

_Schillie._--"Now, Gatty, I won't have you running into any danger. I
don't mean to say you are not extremely troublesome, but still I have
got used to you, and I won't have you expose yourself to any danger."

_Captain._--"I think I can manage to make them both of use, and yet
without much danger, I trust. I would not have a hair of their precious
heads lost."

Gatty flushed up like the setting sun with pleasure; Oscar nodded in
approbation, while I said, "Then it is decided, at all events, we get
off to-night, if we can."

"Man proposes, and God disposes."

"Sister, look," said Serena, in a low sorrowful voice. Ah me, did I see
rightly? With every sail set, that ominous, black, hateful vessel, the
pirate ship, hove in sight, and ere we could collect our senses, or
believe our eyes, she was anchoring in the bay.

CHAPTER XLII.

We sat down on the carpet of desperation and the stools of despair.

The pirates on shore seemed as bewildered as we were. The pirates on
board seemed in a great state of confusion and uproar. A general
running, hurrying, and scurrying took place among them all.

While those of the ship pointed vehemently to the sea, they of the land
gesticulated violently towards the caverns, and both were equally
eccentric in their observations regarding us. At last regular parties
were organized, who began systematically, at the same time with the
utmost rapidity, to unload their vessel; while the pirate king, hoisting
a white flag, and attended by a few ferocious-looking followers,
advanced towards our rock. By the captain's advice we hoisted a white
rag of some sort, as a token of friendship, and in silence waited the
result.

In bad French the pirate captain offered us terms for capitulation. He
pointed out how useless it was for us now to think of repelling such
numbers. That if we would come down quietly, we should be received with
open arms ("and cut throats," murmured some one behind me); that they
would engage their most sacred word of honour they would do us no harm
("much honour in a pirate," murmured the same vo