p her here. After all
she was only a girl, timid and fearful, following at Brandon's heels;
frightened lest she should get out of arm's reach of him among those
rough men, and longing with all her heart to take his hand for moral
as well as physical support. It must have been both laughable and
pathetic in the extreme. That miserable sword persisted in tripping
her, and the jack-boots, so much too large, evinced an alarming
tendency to slip off with every step. How insane we all were not to
have foreseen this from the very beginning. It must have been a unique
figure she presented climbing up the steps at Brandon's heels,
jack-boots and all. So unique was it that the sailors working in the
ship's waist stopped their tasks to stare in wonderment, and the
gentlemen on the poop made no effort to hide their amusement. Old
Bradhurst stepped up to her.

"I hope your lordship is feeling better;" and then, surveying her from
head to foot, with a broad grin on his features, "I declare, you look
the picture of health, if I ever saw it. How old are you?"

Mary quickly responded, "Fourteen years."

"Fourteen," returned Bradhurst: "well, I don't think you will shed
much blood. You look more like a deuced handsome girl than any man I
ever saw." At this the men all laughed, and were very impertinent in
the free and easy manner of such gentry, most of whom were
professional adventurers, with every finer sense dulled and debased by
years of vice.

These fellows, half of them tipsy, now gathered about Mary to inspect
her personally, each on his own account. Their looks and conduct were
very disconcerting, but they did nothing insulting until one fellow
gave her a slap on the back, accompanying it by an indecent remark.
Brandon tried to pay no attention to them, but this was too much, so
he lifted his arm and knocked the fellow off the poop into the waist.
The man was back in a moment, and swords were soon drawn and clicking
away at a great rate. The contest was brief, however, as the fellow
was no sort of match for Brandon, who, with his old trick, quickly
twisted his adversary's sword out of his grasp, and with a flash of
his own blade flung it into the sea. The other men were now talking
together at a little distance in whispers, and in a moment one drunken
brute shouted: "It is no man; it is a woman; let us see more of her."

[Illustration]

Before Brandon could interfere, the fellow had unbuckled Mary's
doublet at the throat,