elves.'

"By this time it was well on towards the afternoon, and we only heard
a cannon shot now and then. Then the sound of the firing ceased
altogether. We got back to the house and waited--we knew not for what.
Poor Mrs. Rossiter, who was a very big, stout woman, had sobbed herself
into a state of exhaustion, but she tried to brace herself up when she
saw us, and when Robert Eury told her that he had buried the money, she
thanked him.

"'Try and save it for my children, Robert I fear I shall not be long
with them. And if I am taken away suddenly I want you to bear witness
that it was my husband's wish, and is mine now, that Mary here is to
share alike with my son Fred and my daughter Ann. Would to God I had
means here to write.'

"Robert tried to comfort her with the assurance that all would be well,
when as he spoke we saw a sight at which I, girl of twelve as I was,
was struck with terror--the two French ships appeared round the headland
with the _Britannia_ following with French colours at her peak. The
three came in together very slowly, and then dropped anchor within a
cable's length of the beach. The captain's wife looked at them wildly
for a moment, and then fell forward on her face. She died that night.

"The two French captains treated us very kindly, and they told Robert,
who spoke French well, that Mr. Skinner had made a most determined
attempt to board the larger of the two vessels, but was killed by a
musket-shot, and that only after thirty of the _Britannia's_ crew had
been killed and wounded, and the ship herself was but little more than a
wreck, did Ohlsen, who was himself terribly wounded by a splinter in
the side, haul down his flag. Then the elder of the two Frenchmen asked
Robert which was the child named 'Marie.'

"'This is the child, sir,' said Eury, pointing to me.

"'Then let her come with me and see the gunner of our prize,' said he;
'he is dying, and has asked to see her.'

"I was taken on board the Britannia, over her bloodstained decks, and
into the main cabin, where poor Ohlsen was lying breathing his last. His
face lit up when he saw me, and he drew me to his bosom just as he had
done years before in the open boat off Tahiti. I stayed with him till
the last, then one of the French privateer officers led me away.

"In the morning Mrs. Rossiter was buried; the French captains allowing
some of the surviving members of the crew of the _Britannia_ to carry
her body to her grave. Ther