o woman ever born that would hunt down four poor sailor-men,"
cries Peter Bligh.

"To say nothing of the he-lion they was a-fondling of"--from Seth
Barker.

"Lads," said I, in my turn, "this is the unlooked for, and I, for one,
don't mean to pass it by. I'm going to ask those young ladies for a
short road to the hills--and not lose any time about it either."

They all said "Aye, aye," and we ran forward together. The halloaing in
the wood was closing in about us now; you could hear voices wherever
you turned an ear. As for the lanterns, they darted from bush to bush
like glow-worms on a summer's night, so that I made certain they would
dodge us after all. My heart was low down enough, be sure of it, when I
lost view of those guiding stars altogether, and found myself face to
face with the last figure I might have asked for if you'd given me the
choice of a hundred.

For what should happen but that the weird being, whom Seth Barker had
called the "he-lion," the old fellow in petticoats, whom the little
girls made such a fuss of, he, I say, appeared of a sudden right in the
path before us, and, holding up a lantern warningly, he hailed us with
a word which told us that he was our friend--the very last I would have
named for that in all the island.

"Jasper Begg," cried he, in a voice that I'd have known for a
Frenchman's anywhere, "follow Clair-de-Lune--follow--follow!"

He turned to the bushes behind him, and, seeming to dive between them,
we found him, when we followed, flat on his stomach, the lantern out,
and he running like a dog up a winding path before him. He was leading
us to the heights, I said; and when I remembered the great bare peaks
and steeple-like rocks, upstanding black and gloomy under the starry
sky, I began to believe that this wild man was right and that in the
hills our safety lay.

But of that we had yet to learn, and for all we knew to the contrary it
might have been a trap.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BIRD'S NEST IN THE HILLS

There had been a great sound of "halloaing" and firing in the woods
when we raced through them for our lives; but it was all still and cold
on the mountain-side, and you could hear even a stone falling or the
drip of water as it oozed from the black rocks to the silent pools
below. What light there was came down through the craggy gorge; and it
was not until we had climbed up and up for a good half-hour or more
that we began to hear the sea-breeze whistling among the