or you with her
husband, should such become necessary. If your friends escape him, he
will probably return in a very bad humour, and be much disposed to wreak
his vengeance on your head," said Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, very naturally, took every opportunity of being with Jack
alone, that she might hear more about her parents, of whom he had so
much to tell, as also of his own adventures. The more he saw of her,
the more he was struck by her natural refinement and intelligence, and
the amount of information which she had been able to obtain. At length
the secret was told to Dame Pearson. At first she would scarcely
believe that Jack was the same youth she had formerly known, and she had
to examine his countenance very narrowly before she would believe his
and Elizabeth's assertions. At length, however, she was convinced.

"I see no more reason to doubt," she observed, "after all, that you
should have changed from a drover to a naval officer, than that we,
after living quiet lives as farmers in old England, should have become
outcasts and wanderers on the earth."

Jack had almost recovered even before Pearson left the island, but he
did not wish to appear so, lest it should be the signal for his being
dismissed from the cottage. Now, however, being able to leave the
house, he rapidly regained his strength, and was able to walk about the
island in company with Elizabeth. Those were happy days! He no longer
concealed from himself that he had given her his heart, and he had good
reason to suspect that he possessed hers in return. They took care in
their walks to keep at a good distance from the huts; the permanent
residents in the island consisting chiefly of old buccaneers and the
wives and families of others away in the ships. These latter were,
however, chiefly mulattoes or negresses, and it any of them caught sight
of him and Elizabeth, they merely staved, taking him probably for one of
the buccaneers. He passed his evenings in company with Dame Pearson and
Elizabeth, reading and talking while they sat at their work. The poor
lady was at first somewhat reserved, but as her confidence in Jack was
established, she described to him her grief and sorrow when she
discovered the course her husband purposed to pursue.

"On the discovery of the Jacobite plot, believing that he himself would
be betrayed, he suddenly determined to quit England," said the dame,
continuing a narrative she had begun. "Going to a sea-port