n's voice was husky, and no one spoke for a minute or two;
then Warley broke the silence.

"Well, I should quite have believed that they intended to do it from all
I heard from Jennings and others about Duncan and O'Hara, as well as
from the well-known character of these pirates. But then, if that was
their intention, why did they allow you to leave the ship unhurt?"

"Ah, why indeed," repeated the captain. "I can't blame you for
entertaining that notion, my lad; for I, old hand as I am, did not
suspect their infernal treachery and cunning. You see, when the pirate
ship came up, we were just preparing to blow up the hatches and rush on
deck. No doubt they would have got the better of us, and killed us to a
man; but before they had managed that they would have suffered
considerably themselves. That wily villain, Andy Duncan--I have been
told since it was he, and I have no doubt it was--devised a scheme by
which they would be enabled to get rid of us quite as easily as if they
had blown out all our brains, but without incurring any risks
themselves. We discovered, when we had been an hour or two on board the
boats, that some trick had been played with them, and they were very
slowly but surely filling."

"The merciless wretches!" exclaimed Ernest; "and you were some hundreds
of miles from shore?"

"Yes, quite five hundred from Ascension, which was the nearest land."

"How did you escape, sir?" exclaimed De Walden.

"Only by God's mercy. The discovery was first made in the launch which
Grey commanded. The night, you will remember, was very dark, or it
probably would have been made before; but they did not find it out till
it was too late to keep it afloat even for a time. They shouted to us
for help, but she had sunk before we could reach them, and there was a
strong current just where she went down, which swept them all away--
except one of the mates, who managed to keep afloat until we picked him
up. On hearing his story, we contrived to strike a light, and examined
our own boat. There was a leak in her too, but providentially only just
below the waterline. I suppose whoever did the job, thought the boat
floated deeper than she did; but by lightening her as much as possible,
and throwing all the weight that remained on the other side, we raised
the damaged part out of water, and then baled her out. When day broke
we were enabled to examine her more carefully. The injury was beyond
our power to repair