em, instead of trying to help themselves, as we perfidious
Englishmen do."

Finding it impossible to persuade her, though, to open the door of the
cabin, which was bolted and barred within, the skipper sang out to me to
go on deck and ask Elsie Vereker to come down and try what she could do,
thinking that the obstinate prisoner would doubtless recognise the
girl's voice and so, through her means, be made more amenable to reason.

No sooner said than done.

Up I went and down the companion-way. I returned anon accompanied not
only by Miss Elsie, but by the colonel as well, Garry O'Neil, who
hurried up the ladder after me with that intent, insisting on his coming
below so that he could the better attend to his wounded leg, which had
broken out again and needed fresh dressing, and after some little
difficulty Garry got him down in safety.

Thanks to Elsie's pleadings, Madame Boisson at length capitulated,
promising to come out of her retreat as soon as she had had time, "to
make her toilet."

"By George!" exclaimed the skipper, overhearing this and turning with an
ironical grin to the colonel, who had his leg upon a chair, and Garry
bustling about him, busy with bandages, "she's a true Frenchwoman, as I
said at the first. Fancy, after being imprisoned there in that stuffy
cabin for four and twenty hours and imagining herself and husband might
be murdered every minute by a lot of pirate scoundrels, thinking of
nothing but titifying herself, instead of thanking God for their escape
and rushing out at the very first opportunity, eager to be free.
Strange creatures!"

"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, smiling at the other's outburst. "It
is true, but they're all alike, and I've seen a good many of them, my
friend."

Presently out sailed Madame Boisson, who I noticed was a middle-aged and
well-preserved woman, attired in an elaborate dressing gown with a
profusion of bows and ribbons fluttering about it, and with a good deal
of pearl powder or some other cosmetic of that sort on her face, and her
cheeks tinted here and there with--well, colour.

Despite her screams and hysterics, however, there was no trace of a tear
in her twinkling black eyes, although her fat little husband, who ambled
meekly in her train, betrayed signs of great emotion, his red face all
swollen from crying, and otherwise looking like a whipped cur.

Madame made a most gracious salute to us all, and, glancing at me with a
spice of coquetry, to