as well to take no notice of his remark.

"Come with me to my house," said Monsieur Jules Pontet. "I want to hear
how that fellow Jacques Chacot got hold of the English seaman. He must
have been a stupid fellow to have allowed himself to be so ill-treated."

"I have not yet had time to make inquiries, monsieur," I said, "but I
will, if you wish it, at once ask him how it happened."

"By all means," replied the mayor; so I desired Larry to tell me how he
had escaped from the hooker, and been turned into a bear.

"It is a long yarn, Mr Terence, but I'll cut it short to plase the
gintleman. You'll remember the night we were aboard the hooker. I was
asleep forward, just dreaming of Ballinahone, an' thinking I was leading
off a dance with Molly Maguire, when down came the whole castle tumbling
about our heads. Opening my eyes, I jumped out of my bunk, and sprang
up the fore hatchway, just in time to see that the masts had been
carried away, and that the hooker was going to the bottom. How it all
happened I couldn't for the life of me tell. I sang out at the top of
my voice for you, Mr Terence, and rushed aft to the cabin, where I
expected to find you asleep. But though I shouted loud enough to waken
the dead, you didn't answer, and not a soul was aboard but myself. For
a moment I caught sight of the stern of a vessel steering away from us,
which made me guess that we had been run down. The water was rushing
into the little craft, and I knew that she must go to the bottom. Her
masts and spars were still hanging to her side, an' so, thinks I to
meself, I'll have a struggle for life. I had seen an axe in the
companion hatch, and, getting hold of it, I cut away the rigging, and
had time to get hold of a cold ham and some bread and a bottle of water,
which I stowed in a basket. Thinks I, I'll make a raft, and so I hove
overboard some planks, with part of the main hatch and a grating, and,
getting on them, lashed them together in a rough fashion, keeping my eye
all the time on the hooker, to see that she didn't go down, and catch me
unawares. I was so mighty busy with this work, that if the vessel which
had run the hooker down had come back to look for us I shouldn't have
seen her. I had just got my raft together, when I saw that the hooker
was settling down, so I gave it a shove off from her side; and faith I
was only just in time, for it made a rush forward, and I thought was
going down with the vessel, but up