descended, and when they reached the raft and saw the senseless
form of Halfrick stretched upon the deck, they were still better
satisfied that they had found so easy an issue from their adventure.

The Pixies, true to their word for once at least, came down quietly, and
let themselves be bound, after which Shamrock told the following story,
which seemed strange indeed to his captors: "Our sentries were stationed
last evening as usual, although it was expected that Fort Spinder would
be abandoned some time during the night. 'Keep up an active patrol,'
said the Captain of the Guard. 'Show yourselves freely to the enemy's
pickets, until you get orders from me to retire. Then quietly and
hastily withdraw from your posts, and we will go off in the last ship
load.'

"That seemed all right, and the sentinels on duty, of whom we are a
part, suspected nothing when, during the night, the relief guard were
ordered to headquarters under pretence of receiving some secret
instructions from the Chief. But they never returned. We kept watch long
after the time for changing guard; no corporal appeared. Then we sent a
messenger to the fort to see what was the matter. He soon returned
saying that the fort was abandoned. Not a Pixie was left except the
sentinels at the posts! We had been fooled, betrayed, deserted and given
over to death by our selfish Chief, who left us as decoys to keep up the
appearance that the fort was occupied, in order to deceive you Brownies.
A madder lot of Pixies never was seen. If we could have gotten hold of
our chiefs we would have made mincemeat of them in short order.

"But storming and swearing didn't help matters. What should we do? That
was the question. We even thought of going straight to your camp and
blowing on the whole mean pack, and would have done it, I think, only we
feared you folks would think it a bit of Spite's strategy and cut our
throats for our pains. In the midst of our deliberations a flood burst
upon us from some unseen quarter. The very witches seemed to be abroad
and conspiring against us. We could not imagine the source, as there was
no rain. The water-pixies readily escaped to the land and are now in
hiding somewhere, but the rest of us fled from point to point until at
last we were cooped up in the towers. Now you can understand why, being
thus betrayed, confused and mystified, we had little stomach for
fighting, and preferred to surrender, if for nothing else than to get
even