ou must swear to me
that you will not betray me, and that no threats or bribes shall move
you.' I took the oath he prescribed. He then said, `You must know that
there are two children, now in the East, who are about to be sent home
to their friends in England. Both their parents are dead, and they
stand between my father and a large property. If they come of age, it
will be theirs, and while they live he cannot enjoy it. Now,
understand, I do not want you to murder the children; we must have
nothing of that sort on our consciences; but you must manage to get hold
of them, and bear them away where they shall be no more heard of. I
leave you to form the plan, and to carry it out, only let me know the
result. Will you undertake the work?' I told him that I would. `Well,
then,' he continued, `the children are now in the Mauritius; their names
are Marmaduke and Ellen Seaton. You will have time to reach them before
they sail; and you must contrive to get a berth on board the ship they
go by. It is whispered that you have contrived to cast away a ship or
so, when you were well paid for it. Perhaps the same turn may serve you
now.'

"The plan was soon arranged. The directions for finding out the
children were given me, and, putting fifty pounds into my hands for my
expenses, he told me to start off at once, and to come back to him when
the matter was settled. I reached the Mauritius without difficulty, and
found that the children, under charge of an Indian nurse, were to
proceed by the _Penguin_, a small free-trader, touching there on her
homeward voyage. In aid of my plan, the second mate had died, so I
applied for and obtained the berth; besides which I fell in with two
seamen who had been with me before, when a ship I sailed in was lost by
my means. I opened my project to them, and they promised to assist me.
The nurse was devotedly attached to the children and by nursing them,
and being attentive to her, I soon won her confidence. I found,
however, much more difficulty than I expected in my attempt to wreck the
vessel. The captain was a good navigator, and very attentive to his
duty, as was the first mate; so that when, during my watch on deck at
night, I got the ship steered a wrong course, in the hopes of edging her
in on the African coast, I was very soon detected. I laid the blame on
the helmsman, one of my accomplices, who stoutly asserted that he had
been steering a proper course. I again tried to