ead. "We
have got the brig, and we mean to keep her. I can navigate her, though
I am no seaman, so you needn't talk further about it, Mr. Bates. It's
liberty we require."

"What are you going to do with us?" asked Bates.

"Leave you behind."

Bates's face blanched. "What, here?"

"Yes. It don't look a picturesque spot, does it? And yet I've lived here
for some years"; and he grinned.

Bates was silent. The logic of that grin was unanswerable.

"Come!" cried the Dandy, shaking off his momentary melancholy, "look
alive there! Lower away the jolly-boat. Mrs. Vickers, go down to your
cabin and get anything you want. I am compelled to put you ashore, but I
have no wish to leave you without clothes." Bates listened, in a sort
of dismal admiration, at this courtly convict. He could not have spoken
like that had life depended on it. "Now, my little lady," continued Rex,
"run down with your mamma, and don't be frightened."

Sylvia flashed burning red at this indignity. "Frightened! If there had
been anybody else here but women, you never would have taken the brig.
Frightened! Let me pass, prisoner!"

The whole deck burst into a great laugh at this, and poor Mrs. Vickers
paused, trembling for the consequences of the child's temerity. To thus
taunt the desperate convict who held their lives in his hands seemed
sheer madness. In the boldness of the speech however, lay its safeguard.
Rex--whose politeness was mere bravado--was stung to the quick by the
reflection upon his courage, and the bitter accent with which the child
had pronounced the word prisoner (the generic name of convicts) made him
bite his lips with rage. Had he had his will, he would have struck the
little creature to the deck, but the hoarse laugh of his companions
warned him to forbear. There is "public opinion" even among convicts,
and Rex dared not vent his passion on so helpless an object. As men do
in such cases, he veiled his anger beneath an affectation of amusement.
In order to show that he was not moved by the taunt, he smiled upon the
taunter more graciously than ever.

"Your daughter has her father's spirit, madam," said he to Mrs. Vickers,
with a bow.

Bates opened his mouth to listen. His ears were not large enough to take
in the words of this complimentary convict. He began to think that he
was the victim of a nightmare. He absolutely felt that John Rex was a
greater man at that moment than John Bates.

As Mrs. Vickers descended the hatchw