y would not leave their wounded and tired men to
gratify their curiosity. They very soon remembered, after the
excitement of the work in which they had been engaged was over, that
they had not breakfasted; so all hands who could move about set to work
to collect sticks to light a fire. It soon blazed up, and speedily
coffee and cocoa were boiling, and bits of meat were roasting away at
the ends of ramrods and sticks. The poor wounded men, when the
excitement was over, began to feel not hunger, but the pain of their
hurts, and several sank to the ground unable to move. Their shipmates
did their best for them, and rigged an awning with the boats' sails,
under which they were placed. Some of the men wandered away, and
brought back a supply of cocoa-nuts, the milk of which afforded a
deliciously cooling beverage to the poor fellows. Jack, meantime, was
tending his young charge with as much care and tenderness as a mother
would a child. At length he was rewarded by seeing Harry come to
himself. The boy looked up in his face, and the first words he uttered
were--

"We've beat them, Rogers, have we? Hurrah! hurrah!"

"Yes, Harry," answered Jack, "it is all right. The enemy have taken to
flight, and we shall soon, I hope, be on board the frigate. But here,
you will be the better for some cocoa. Take this."

Jack sat down under the shade of the sail, and Needham having brought
him a mug of cocoa, he broke some biscuit into it, and stirring it up
while the boy's head rested on his knee, he fed him as he would have
done a baby. Harry, who had soon again relapsed into apparent
unconsciousness, opened his lips and ate a little with a dreamy
expression of countenance, as if he himself fancied that he was still a
baby being fed by his nurse. The food, however, Jack saw was doing him
good, for the colour slowly returned to his cheeks, and his pulse began
to beat more regularly.

"He will be all right soon," exclaimed Jack to Adair. "It is wonderful
what Nature will do if we don't play tricks, and take liberties with
her."

Harry Bevan, though delicately nurtured, was of a sound constitution,
which he had not injured by either drinking or smoking, or by any other
means, as many poor silly lads do, thinking they are behaving in a manly
way by so doing. Had he been inclined to do so, Jack Rogers would have
taken very good care to prevent him. Thus it was, however, that he did
not succumb to the fearful injury he had