was only crushed flat by the
weight of sorrow that lay like a millstone on his youthful bosom.

The first thing that set his active brain agoing once more--thereby
overturning the weight of sorrow and causing the spring of his peculiar
spirit to rebound--was the sight of the two pirates hauling up the boat
and carrying off the oars.

"Ha! that's your game, is it?" muttered the boy, between his teeth, and
grasping the pole with both hands as if he wished to squeeze his fingers
into the wood. "You don't want to give us a chance of escaping, don't
you, eh! is that it? You think that because we're a small party, and the
half of us females, that we're cowed, and wont think of trying any other
way of escaping, do you? Oh yes, that's what you think; you know it, you
do, _but you're mistaken_" (he became terribly sarcastic and bitter at
this point); "you'll find that you've got _men_ to deal with, that
you've not only caught a tartar, but _two_ tartars--one o' them being
ten times tartarer than the other. Oh, if--"

"What's all that you're saying, Corrie?" said Montague, stepping out of
the tent at that moment.

"O Captain!" said the boy, vehemently, "I wish I were a giant!"

"Why so, lad?"

"Because then I would wade out to that wreck, clap my shoulder to her
bow, shove her into deep water, carry you, and Alice, and Poopy aboard,
haul out the main-mast by the roots, make an oar of it, and scull out to
sea, havin' previously fired off the biggest gun aboard of her to let
the pirates know what I was doing."

Corrie's spirit was in a tumultuous and very rebellious state. He was
half inclined to indulge in hysterical weeping, and more than half
disposed to give way to a burst of savage glee. He spoke with the
mantling blood blazing in his fat cheeks, and his two eyes glittering
like those of a basilisk. Montague could not repress a smile and a look
of admiration as he said to our little hero:

"Why, Corrie, if you were a giant it would be much easier to go to the
other side of the island, wring off the heads of all the pirates, and,
carrying me on your shoulders, and Alice and Poopy in your coat pockets,
get safely aboard the Foam, and ho! for Sandy Cove."

"So it would," said Corrie gravely. "I did not think of that; and it
would be a far pleasanter way than the other."

"Ah, Corrie, I fear that you are a very bloodthirsty fellow."

"Of course I am when I have pirates to deal with. I would kill them
every man, withou