rd; but before I'd
got half way through the cocoanut grove, I heard a horrible yell of a
savage. So, thinks I, here comes them blackguard pagans again, to attack
the settlement; and before I could hide out of the way, a naked savage
almost ran into my arms. He was sea-green in the face with fright, and
blood was running over his right arm.

"The moment he saw me, instead of splitting me up with his knife and
eating me alive, as these fellers are so fond of doin', he gave a
start, and another great cry, and doubled on his track like a hare. His
cry was answered by a shout from half a dozen sailors, who burst out of
the thicket at that moment, and I saw they were in pursuit of him. Down
I went at once behind a thick bush, and the whole lot o' the blind bats
passed right on in full cry, within half an inch of my nose. And never
saw sich a set o' piratical-looking villains since I was born. I felt
quite sure that yon schooner is the pirate that has been doing so much
mischief hereabouts; so I came back as fast as my legs could carry me,
to tell you what I had seen. There, you have got all that I know of the
matter now."

"You are wrong, boy. The schooner you saw is not the pirate; it is the
Foam. Strange, very strange!" muttered Henry.

"What's strange," inquired the lad.

"Not the appearance of the wounded nigger," answered the other; "I can
explain all about him, but the sailors--that puzzles me."

Henry then related the morning's adventure to his young companion.

"But," continued he, after detailing all that the reader already knows,
"I cannot comprehend how the pirates you speak of could have landed
without their vessel being in sight; and that nothing is to be seen from
the mountain-tops except the Talisman on the one side of the island and
the Foam on the other, I can vouch for. Boats might lie concealed among
the rocks on the shore, no doubt. But no boats would venture to put
ashore with hostile intentions, unless the ship to which they belonged
were within sight. As for the crew of the Foam, they are ordinary
seamen, and not likely to amuse themselves chasing wounded savages,
even if they were allowed to go ashore, which I think is not likely; for
Gascoyne knows well enough that that side of the island is inhabited by
the pagans, who would as soon kill and eat a man as they would a pig."

"Sooner,--the monsters!" exclaimed the boy, indignantly; for he had, on
more than one occasion, been an eyewitness of the