."

Bumpus, who was not restrained by any thoughts of the supposed power or
influence of the little girl, and whose superstitious fears were again
doing furious battle with his natural courage, heaved a deep sigh,
ground his teeth together, and clenched his fists.

Even in that dreadful hour the seaman's faith in his physical
invincibility, and in the terrible power of his fists, did not
altogether fail. Although he wore a cutlass, and had used it that day
with tremendous effect, he did not now draw it. He preferred to engage
supernatural enemies with the weapons that nature had given him, and
entered the cave on tiptoe with slow, cautious steps, his fists tightly
clenched and ready for instant action, yet thrust into the pockets of
his coatee in a deceptively peaceful way, as if he meant to take the
ghosts by surprise.

Corrie followed him, also on tiptoe, with the broken saber in his right
hand, and the cocked pistol in his left, his forefinger being on the
trigger, and the muzzle pointing straight at the small of the seaman's
back,--if one may be permitted to talk of such an enormous back having
any "small" about it!

Poopy entered last, also on tiptoe, trembling violently, holding on with
both hands to the waistband of Corrie's trousers, and only restrained
from instant flight by her anxieties and her strong love for little
Alice.

Thus, step by step, with bated breath and loudly beating hearts, pausing
often to listen, and gasping in a subdued way at times, the three
friends advanced from the gloom without into the thick darkness within,
until their gliding forms were swallowed up.

Now it so happened that the shouts and yells to which we have more than
once made reference in this chapter attracted a band of savages who had
been put to flight by Henry Stuart's party. These rascals, not knowing
what was the cause of so much noise up on the heights, and being much
too well acquainted with the human voice in all its modifications to
fancy that ghosts had anything to do with it, cautiously ascended
towards the cavern, just a few minutes after the disappearance of John
Bumpus and his companions.

Here they sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona
carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and,
making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his
trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugarloaf,
on the summit of which he placed he