foam as it
disappeared.

"Stand by to lower the gig," shouted Manton.

"Ay, ay, sir," was the hearty response of the men, as some of them
sprang to obey.

"Lower away!"

The boat struck the water, and its crew were on the thwarts in a moment.
At the same time the point of the island was passed, and the native
village opened up to view.

"Load Long Tom--double shot!" roared Manton, whose ire was raised not so
much at the idea of a fellow-creature having been so barbarously
murdered, as at the notion of one of the crew of his schooner having
been so treated by contemptible niggers. "Away, lads, and pick up that
man."

"It's of no use," remonstrated Scraggs; "he's done for by this time."

"I know it," said Manton, with a fierce oath, "bring him in, dead or
alive; if the sharks leave an inch of him, bring it to me. I'll make
the black villains eat it raw."

This ferocious threat was interlarded with and followed by a series of
terrible oaths which we think it inadvisable to repeat.

"Starboard!" he shouted to the man at the helm, as soon as the boat shot
away on its mission of mercy.

"Starboard it is."

"Steady!"

While he gave these orders, Manton sighted the brass gun carefully, and,
just as the schooner's head came up to the wind, he applied the match.

Instantly a cloud of smoke obscured the centre of the little vessel as
if her powder magazine had blown up, and a deafening roar went ringing
and reverberating from cliff to cliff as two of the great iron shot were
sent groaning through the air and pitched right into the heart of the
village.

It was this tremendous shot from Long Tom, followed almost
instantaneously by the entire broadside of the _Talisman_, that saved
the life of Alice, possibly the lives of her young companions also,--
that struck terror to the hearts of the savages, causing them to
converge towards their defenceless homes from all directions, and that
apprised Ole Thorwald and Henry Stuart that the assault on the village
had commenced in earnest.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

GREATER MYSTERIES THAN EVER--A BOLD MOVE AND A CLEVER ESCAPE.

We return now to the _Talisman_.

The instant the broadside of the cruiser burst with such violence, and
in such close proximity, on Manton's ears, he felt that he had run into
the very jaws of the lion; and that escape was almost impossible. The
bold heart of the pirate quailed at the thought of his impending fate,
but the fear caused by consc