o down
again, lad. I must report to the captain that this craft is cruising
in these waters. It will be dark before we are back, and I don't want
to be in the woods after dark; there's no saying what one might tread
on. I thought that we would stretch ourselves out under the trees for
to-night and go aboard in the morning, but I feel different now. Bless
you, I should never close an eye. So I propose as we goes down so as
not to be noticed by them chaps up at the store, and then gets hold of
a boat and rows on board quiet."

"I am quite willing to do that Jacques. I don't think I should get
much sleep either in the woods."

"No, I guess not, lad. Come along; the sun is halfway down already,
and I would not be left in these woods after dark, not for six months'
pay. The thought of that snake makes me crawl all over. Who would have
thought now, when I lugged you in over the bowsprit of La Belle Marie
that night in the channel, that you were going to save my life some
day. Well, I don't suppose, lad, I shall ever get quits with you, but
if there is a chance you can count upon me. You come to me any night
and say I am going to escape, Jacques, and I will help you to do it,
even if they riddle me with bullets five minutes afterward."

"I shall never ask that of you, Jacques," Ralph said warmly. "I
consider we are quits now, though you may not. Indeed, I can tell you
that I don't consider that two months of kindness are wiped out by
just taking a jump on to the back of a snake."

There were loud sounds of shouting, singing, and quarreling as they
passed near the great fires that were blazing near the storehouse.
They reached the waterside without notice, and taking a boat rowed off
to the brig. The captain looked over the side:

"Who is that?"

"Jacques Clery and the English lad, captain."

"You got tired of the noise on shore, I suppose?" the captain said.

"Not exactly that, captain, for we have not been near the others at
all. We took a long walk through the woods up to the top of the hill
in the middle of the island and we came back for two reasons. The
first because I have been so badly scared by a snake, who would have
bit me had not this young fellow leaped on to its back just as he was
about to strike me in the neck, that I would not have slept on the
ground for anything; and, in the second place, we came to tell you
that from the top of the hill we saw a large frigate--English, I
should say, from the cut of