le child is safe, and escaped any harm from those
scoundrels, except her nerves probably being much shaken, but that she
will soon recover at her age--and I told you she should be restored to
you, you know. By George! Though, we've paid them out at last for
demon's work aboard here!"

"The devils!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker savagely, his mood changing as
he recollected all he had seen and suffered at their hands. "Have you
killed them all?"

"All but half a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after
through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them. They are
fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and
it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double
hitches, I know. Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with
boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard
if they offer to stir."

"Faith," observed Garry O'Neil reflectively, "It was as purty a bit of
foighting as I ivver took a hand in, whilst it lasted!"

"But let us go and see what has become of all those chaps below--all
those you mentioned as belonging to the French crew, whom you left on
board with your daughter," went on the skipper. "We saw the flash of a
pistol, you remember, when we came up alongside, and somebody must have
prevented those villains from getting into the cabin, or else--"

He stopped here and looked meaningly at Elsie.

"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, attempting to rise, but falling back
on the hen-coop along the side of the bulwarks he had been using for a
temporary seat, he seemed so utterly exhausted. "Ah, those brave
fellows, I was almost forgetting them; but I can't move, Senor
Applegarth, or I should have gone down before this to see what had
become of my old comrades; but I'm helpless, as you see."

Elsie now lifted her head, looked up and turned towards the skipper.

"They are all wounded," said she, clasping her hands together and with a
look of fright on her face. "Two of the men--the French sailors, I
mean--and the English gentleman."

"That's the little Britisher I told you about, who was so plucky,"
explained the colonel--"Mr Johnson."

"Well, my father," continued the young girl, "these three rushed down
the stairs into the cabin, shortly before the steamer thumped against
the side of our ship, when I thought we were all going down to the
bottom of the sea."

"Yes, my child," said the colonel encouragingl