resent style of
dress."

Pat, looking at himself, gave a broad Irish grin.

"Shure enough, yer honour; and bad luck to them who left me here,
thinking I'd be killed and cooked and eaten, about which I'll be after
telling yer honour when there's more time than at present. I've just
been informing these black friends of mine that they were fools to come
and attack you, seeing that you belong to a mighty big ship, which would
come and blow them and their island right out into the sea in a quarter
less than no time; and now I've got them to be peaceable, it will be as
well to take advantage of the opportunity to get the boats afloat, for,
by my faith, they're not the most dependable of people, and in another
moment they may again change their minds."

"I am much obliged to you, old shipmate," answered Green; "and if you
can manage to keep the blacks quiet, we will have the boats in the water
in a few minutes. Tell them that we were driven by the storm on their
island; that we wish to be good friends with them, as with all the
people in these parts, and, provided they behave well to us, we will do
them no harm."

"Shure, yer honour, I'll tell them all that, and just anything else that
may come into my head at the same time, and I'll answer for it that
they'll be decently behaved as long as you stay," said Pat.

"Just keep them in play, then, while we get the boats afloat; and make
them understand that we go away because it is our good pleasure, and not
because we are afraid of them," said Green.

"Shure, yer honour, I'll do that," answered the Irishman, with one of
his inimitable grins, which possibly had been the means of enabling him
to preserve his life.

While he went back to his black friends, the two crews, uniting their
strength, got first one boat afloat and then the other. Green felt
greatly relieved, for, whatever turn events might take, he and his party
would be able to get away without having to fight for their lives.

Casey now returned.

"The savages say, sir, that if you like to stop and be friends, they'll
be friends with you; but I'm after thinking that the sooner you can get
away from this the better, for they're not altogether trustworthy
gentlemen. Not long ago a sandal-wood trader put in here and sent her
boat ashore, when they knocked every mother's son of the crew on the
head, and ate them afterwards. To be sure the Englishmen hadn't behaved
altogether properly, for once before when the