y
that during the whole of that time they were _never_ released from the
ring-bolts to which they were chained; that they lay there on the hard
planking day and night, alternately scorched by the fierce rays of the
noonday sun, and chilled by the heavy dews of night; that they were
sparingly and irregularly fed--and then only upon the coarsest and most
loathsome of food--and still more sparingly and irregularly supplied
with water; that they were the recipients of incessant abuse and
brutality from the wretches who were in possession of the ship; and some
slight conception can be formed of their dreadful state of body and mind
during that interminable three weeks.

At the end of that time the land was made, and late at night both ships
glided into an anchorage, where they brought-up, the canvas was furled
in a slovenly fashion which drove poor Bowen--in spite of all that he
had suffered--half-distracted, the boats were lowered, and preparations
were at once made for the transport of the prisoners to the shore.

This operation, under the direction of the truculent-looking and
ruffianly Spaniard already mentioned as the head of the gang in
possession of the _Aurora_, was speedily effected. The prisoners,
handcuffed with their hands behind them, were sent down into one of the
boats lowered for their reception, and there secured to a length of
heavy chain, so that where one went, the rest were compelled to go also;
and, thus yoked together, they were transferred to the shore. A glance
at the star-lit sky, in which the pole-star hung, only some twenty to
twenty-five degrees above the horizon, told poor Leicester that they
were landing upon a shore open to the northward, and that, from the
position of Polaris in the sky, they were somewhere within about
twenty-five degrees of the equator; but, beyond that, he was just then
unable to learn anything further concerning their whereabouts.

As the boat's keel grated upon the beach, the prisoners were ordered by
sufficiently significant gestures--none of them understanding a single
word of Spanish--to climb over the side and make their way up the beach.

The Spaniard in charge pointed significantly with a long whip which he
carried to a break in the dense growth of trees which clustered close to
the water's edge and then, with an ominous flourish of the lash, gave
the word for the miserable band to move forward. A toilsome march of
some four or five miles along a track of hea