or branches from the trees, and by other hard
substances which went hurtling like cannon-shot through the air. So
rapid, however, is vegetation in the tropics that nature herself would
repair much of the damage produced, and the industry of man the
remainder--although the proprietors had to suffer severely in their
pockets, while there was no power to restore to life the unhappy beings
who had been killed.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

CAPTAIN TRACY AND NORAH AT HOME--A LETTER FROM GERALD--HIS ADVENTURES--A
CRUISE OFF HISPANIOLA--ENGAGEMENT WITH A FRENCH SQUADRON--THE ENEMY PUT
TO FLIGHT--DEATH OF A YOUNG MIDSHIPMAN--RETURN TO PORT ROYAL--A SECOND
CRUISE, AND CAPTURE OF SEVERAL RICH MERCHANTMEN--GERALD IN COMMAND OF
THE FLORA--HIS STEWARD PETER--MORE TIDINGS OF THE PIRATES--THE CHAMPION
SENT WITH DESPATCHES TO THE LEEWARD ISLANDS--JOINS THE BUCKINGHAM IN
ATTACKING A FORT AT MARTINICO--GENEROUS CONDUCT OF CAPTAIN TYRRELL--
PETER'S NARRATIVE--HIS CAPTURE BY PIRATES, AND ESCAPE.

Norah and her father had for many months been living an uneventful life
in their pretty little cottage near Waterford. She was his constant
companion; indeed, she never ventured out without him. Things had come
to a pretty pass, as he observed, when a young lady couldn't take a walk
by herself without the risk of being carried off by a party of
filibustering squireens, quite as bad in their way as the picarooning
rascals in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main, who had often in
days of yore given him so much anxiety--not that they ever had caught
him, for he was too much on his guard, though he had been chased
well-nigh a score of times; and he intended to be on his guard now, and,
as he hoped, with the same success.

This state of things, therefore, did not much concern him, as he was
glad of Norah's society, and was always as ready to walk with her as she
was with him. Their walks, indeed, seldom extended much beyond
Waterford, or the often-trod road to Widow Massey's house. Norah never
passed many days without paying her a visit. They were now looking
forward to receiving news of Owen, or indeed, as they hoped, seeing him
himself, as the _Ouzel Galley_, unless detained longer than was
expected, would some time since have commenced her homeward voyage. A
letter had come from Gerald saying that he had just seen her on her way
round to Montego Bay, and giving an account of himself and what he had
seen and done up to that time. He promised