of which was passed round our bodies,
the skipper, the mates, and I were hauled up on deck and carried into
the fore house, where we found the boatswain, Chips, and Sails as
securely trussed up as ourselves. And there, still gagged and bound
helplessly hand and foot, we were left to our meditations until, after a
very eternity, as it seemed, of extreme discomfort, first came the
daylight and finally eight bells of the morning watch, when the sliding
door of the house was thrust open and one of the men entered--a fellow
named Adams.

After looking at us meditatively for a moment, and carefully examining
our lashings to assure himself that they still held firmly, he removed
the gags from our mouths--for which I, for one, was profoundly
thankful--and informed us that breakfast was about to be brought to us,
and that our hands would be loosed to enable us to partake of it. But
he warned us that his instructions were to shoot at the slightest sign
of an attempt on our part to break out of the house, or the slightest
uplifting of our voices, and to give point to the statement he exhibited
a fully loaded revolver, which Captain Roberts at once recognised as his
own personal property.

"And pray, who gave you those instructions, Adams?" demanded the
skipper.

"I ain't allowed to say," answered the man. "But I was to tell you," he
continued, "that you ain't none of yer permitted to talk to any of us
men, or to ask us any questions; and if you persist in doin' so you're
to be gagged again."

"Very well," agreed the skipper artfully; "then we will not ask you
anything that you feel you ought not to tell. But I suppose you will
have no objection to tell me, without asking, what has been done with
regard to the passengers?"

"The gen'lemen have been lashed up, same as yourselves, and locked away,
two in a cabin; while the women folk and the kids is locked up all safe
in the other cabins; so there ain't no chancet of none of 'em bein' able
to slip for'ard and help yer anyways. And now, don't you ask me nothin'
more, because I ain't goin' to answer yer," replied Adams, with some
show of testiness.

"But I suppose you can tell us, if you choose, what your new skipper,
Bainbridge, is going to do with us," I insinuated. "He is not going to
keep us cooped up here until a man-o'-war comes along and captures the
ship, is he?"

"Now, look 'e here, Mister Temple, don't you go for to try to pump me,
or it'll be the worse for y