more frightened than she was!

"Oh--oh, that's one of those ferocious wild animals, little missy, eh?"
chuckled the Captain. "I see, young lady."

"Yes, but they frightened me," pleaded poor Nell. "They moved about
under my feet, jumping up at me, I thought; and it was so dark down
there that I didn't know what they might be. You would have been
frightened too, I think, sir!"

She added this little retort to her explanation with some considerable
spirit, a bit nettled by the Captain's chaff.

"Well, well, my dear, perhaps you are right," he replied good-
humouredly. "I also have a confession to make, missy. Just before
Rover cantered up, with you holding on to his tail like Mazeppa lashed
to the back of the fiery untamed steed of the desert, a blackbird flew
out of your blackberry thicket, brushing past my face, and do you know
it startled me so that I jumped back, losing my hat. So, you see, I got
a fright too!"

"I see'd yer, sir," said Dick, the Captain looking round as if awaiting
comment on his action. "I see'd yer done it!"

"And so did I," cried Bob, the appearance of whose face had not been
improved by his struggles with the thorny bushes as he tried to force
his way through them to Nellie's rescue. "I saw you too!"

"You young rascals!" exclaimed the Captain, shaking his stick at them.
"I thought you were looking at me! I suppose you'll be going and
telling everybody you saw the old sailor in a terrible funk, and that I
was going to faint?"

"Sure and that's what I feel like doing!" cried Mrs Gilmour in a very
woebegone voice, she having only just succeeded in arriving at the scene
of action, scrambling down with some difficulty from the top of the
slope, the pathway being blocked at intervals by the struggling creepers
which twined and interlaced themselves with the undergrowth, trailing
down from the branches of the trees above, and making it puzzling to
know which way to go. "I couldn't crawl a step further. What with
scurrying to catch that dreadful steamboat, and then my fright of
hearing the children scream, and now having to clamber down this
mountain, I'm ready to drop!"

"Don't, ma'am, please," said the Captain imploringly; "you'll be sorry
for it if you do. The ground is full of rabbit-burrows, and there are a
lot of nettles about."

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, looking round her in the greatest alarm,
and drawing in the skirts of her dress. "Whatever made you bring me
he