the time I was so bound that I could not move a
step.

At last I must have dropped into a heavy sleep, for the next thing I saw
was the bright sunshine streaming into the hut where I lay, and a crowd
of blacks with large frizzed heads of hair chattering about me, every
man being armed with spear and club, while the buzz of voices plainly
told that there was a throng waiting outside.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

HOW I RAN FROM THE WHITEBIRD CATCHERS.

Yes, I may as well own to it: I was terribly frightened, but my first
thoughts were as to what had become of my companions. Jack Penny and
the doctor must have been seized at the same time as I. Jimmy might
have managed to escape. Perhaps his black skin would make him be looked
upon as a friend. But the old captain, what about him? He would return
to the schooner with his men and be seized, and knocked on the head for
certain. The fierce resistance he would make certainly would cause his
death, and I shuddered at the thought.

Then I began to think of my mother and father, how I should have failed
in helping them; and I remember thinking what a good job it was that my
mother would never know exactly what had happened to me. Better the
long anxiety, I thought, of watching and waiting for my return than to
know I had been killed like this.

"But I'm not killed yet," I thought, as the blood flushed to my face.
"I'll have a run for it, if I can."

I had not much time given me to think, for I was dragged to my feet, and
out into a large open place where there were huts and trees, and there
before me lay the sea with our schooner, but the other was gone; and as
I recalled the fire of the previous night I knew that she must have been
burned to the water's edge and then sunk.

I began wondering about what must have been the fate of the other
schooner's crew, and somehow it seemed that they deserved it. Then I
began thinking of my own friends, and then, very selfishly no doubt,
about myself.

But I had little time for thought, being hurried along and placed in the
middle of a crowd of the savages, all of whom seemed to be rolling their
eyes and looking at me as if enjoying my position.

"Well," I thought to myself, "it is enough to scare anybody; but I'll
try and let them see that I belong to a superior race, and will not show
what I feel."

My eyes kept wandering about eagerly, first to look where my companions
were placed, but as I saw no sign of them I began to hop