at it would be, when we were alone
together," Dorothy said, laughing. "She always thinks it right on
special occasions to keep us to our manners, and to make us sure
that we know how it is becoming to behave; but you know well,
Roger, that she is not strict with us generally, and likes us to
enjoy ourselves. When we are staying up at the farm with Aunt
Peggy, she lets us run about as we will; and never interferes with
us, save when our spirits carry us away altogether. I think we
should be glad if we always lived in the country.

"But now, Roger, let us hear much more about your voyage, and the
fight with the Moors. Are they black men?"

"Not at all, Dorothy. They are not very much darker than our own
fishermen, when they are bronzed by the sun and wind. There are
black men who live somewhere near their country, and there were
several of these fighting with them. These blacks are bigger men
than the Moors, and have thick lips and wide mouths. I believe that
they live as slaves among the Moors, but those who were with them
fought as bravely as they did; and it needed a man with a stout
heart to engage with them, so ugly were their faces."

"Were you not terrified, Roger?"

"I was frightened at first, Dorothy, and felt a strange weakness in
my knees, as they began to swarm up the ship's side; but it passed
off when the scuffle began. You see, there was no time to think
about it. We all had to do our best, and even had I been frightened
ever so badly, I hope that I should not have showed it, for it
would have brought shame upon my father as well as myself; but in
truth I thought little about it, one way or the other. There they
were on the deck, and had to be driven back again; and we set about
the work like Englishmen and honest men and, thanks to our pikes
and axes, we had not very much trouble about it; especially when we
once became fairly angered, on seeing some of our friends undone by
the heathen.

"I myself would rather go through two or three such fights, than
encounter such another storm as we had off the coast of Portugal,
for four days. It seemed that we must be lost, the waves were of
such exceeding bigness--far surpassing anything I had ever seen
before. My heart was in my mouth scores of times, and over and over
again I thought that she would never rise again, so great was the
weight of water that poured over her. Truly it was the mercy of God
which alone saved us, for I believe that even my father th