o them, by the long practice that he had had among
the Indians; declaring that, among the tribes beyond the mountains,
he was by no means an exceptionally good shot--which, indeed, was
true enough at short distances, for at these the Indians could
shoot with marvellous dexterity.

"By San Josef!" exclaimed one of the Spanish officers, after
watching the boys shooting at a target, two hundred yards distant,
with their powerful bows; "it reminds me of the way that those
accursed English archers draw their bows, and send their arrows
singing through the air. In faith, too, these men, with their blue
eyes and their light hair, remind one of these heretic dogs."

"Who are these English?" Ned asked, carelessly. "I have heard of no
such tribe. Do they live near the seacoast, or among the
mountains?"

"They are no tribe, but a white people, like ourselves," the
captain said. "Of course, you will not have heard of them. And,
fortunately, you are not likely ever to see them on this coast; but
if you had remained where you were born, on the other side, you
would have heard little else talked of than the doings of these
pirates and scoundrels; who scour the seas, defy the authority of
his sacred majesty, carry off our treasures under our noses, burn
our towns, and keep the whole coast in an uproar."

"But," said Ned, in assumed astonishment, "how is it that so great
a monarch as the King of Spain, and Emperor of the Indies, does not
annihilate these ferocious sea robbers? Surely so mighty a king
could have no difficulty in overcoming them."

"They live in an island," the officer said, "and are half fish,
half men."

"What monsters!" Ned exclaimed. "Half fish and half men! How then
do they walk?"

"Not really; but in their habits. They are born sailors, and are so
ferocious and bloodthirsty that, at sea, they overcome even the
soldiers of Spain; who are known," he said, drawing himself up, "to
be the bravest in the world. On land, however, we should teach them
a very different lesson; but on the sea it must be owned that,
somehow, we are less valiant than on shore."

Every day a priest came down to the barracks, and for an hour
endeavored to instill the elements of his religion into the minds
of the now civilized wild men. Ned, although progressing rapidly in
other branches of his Spanish education, appeared abnormally dull
to the explanations of the good father; while Tom's small stock of
Spanish was quite insufficient