the chapel the sand and bushes were piled up in ridgy heaps,
the coral wall around the cemetery had been thrown down, while the flat
head-stones over the pirates' graves had disappeared entirely. Not so,
however, with the white slabs near by where those poor doomed women were
lying; for the hurricane had spared their tombs, and a pall of pure
white sand was sprinkled evenly over their remains. Bending over them
was the trunk of the cocoa-nut, with its top stripped and its leafless
branches quivering in the wind; while from below them streamed out the
long, thin green silk rope which had so often served Captain Brand, the
pirate, for his private executions. Near at hand lay the trestle on
which the doctor had been stretched--caught by the base of the cocoa-nut
column, and half buried in sand--while the cruel strips of raw-hide
which had lashed the victim down were tied and twisted into a maze of
complicated knots by the nimble fingers of the winds.

The doctor started, and his half-closed eyes shot out gleams of anger as
he beheld the unconscious implements designed for his torturing murder;
and leaving the child at the doorway to the chapel, he sallied out,
detached the rope, loosened the trestle from its sandy bed, and placed
them in a corner of the chapel.

Then carefully picking his way, with the boy in his great arms, over
the trees and debris which obstructed the pathway, he speedily
reached the site on which had stood the sheds of the "Centipede's"
crew. Fire, water, and wind had done their work effectually, though
the fire had partially spared the detached storehouse and shed which
he had shared with the infamous padre. All else was a ruin of loose
blocks of stone, broken tiles, nearly buried in banks of sand. From a
well in the once busy court-yard, and which had also escaped the
devouring elements, the doctor drew a bucket or two of water, in which
he slaked the boy's thirst and then his own, and afterward poured water
over their bodies. Then, from a still smouldering beam which puffed out
at intervals a thin curl of smoke from beneath one of the sheds, he
lit a fire in the court-yard, while from the wreck of the storeroom he
succeeded in rescuing some hard biscuit and a ham. This last he tore
in shreds, and placing them on sticks before the fire, they were
thus enabled to make a hearty meal, first providing for the wants of
the child, however--soaking the biscuit for him, as if it were his first
duty on eart