o have seen that Pixie get. She
turned and made through the port, mounted to the surface, and flew
across it like the flying Dutchman. I found it a little hard to hold on
to her leg. But the creature had cast out of her spinnerets a good stout
cable as she turned to leave her nest, which I seized with both
hands.[AV]

[Illustration: THE BOY'S ILLUSTRATION.
FIG. 107.--Pipe and the Pixie.]

"I should hate to say how many knots an hour we rated. The Pixie went so
fast that my head was kept above water by the swiftness of the motion.
She made straight for the island, and upon my word, I believe she would
have towed me clear ashore if it hadn't been for an accident. In
doubling the edge of a cluster of water lilies my tug struck a snag and
capsized. The rope slackened and I had to swim for it. Mrs. Argyroneta
dived. Not relishing a second journey to the bottom of the lake, I cut
the cable with my knife and clambered on top of a lily leaf. After some
trouble I managed to cut the leaf loose, and as the wind and current set
in toward the island, I drifted ashore just below here. I had scarcely
landed when I met these hearties here, who broke off into the woods at a
livelier rate than even my Pixie tug had made. That is the whole of my
yarn. And now if you please, give me something to eat for I'm mortal
hungry."

"What became of your Pixie?" asked Blythe.

"Never saw her after she dived," returned Pipe. "I reckon she's going
yet, for a worse scared creature, barring these three Jacks of ours, of
course, I never saw. But, come comrades, here I have been spinning my
yarn about my own miserable carcass, and all the time have heard nothing
of the fleet. To tell the truth, I've been afraid to ask. But let me
know the worst, all of it, while the cooks are getting supper ready."

The story was soon told. The good sailor was glad to find affairs had
gone no worse. His joy over the ignoble end of the Pixie monitor was
particularly keen.

"Humph!" he said, "just what I thought. A lubberly old pot! And any
seaman that would sail in such an affair deserves no better fate than to
be sent to the bottom by a dragoon's cutlass."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote AV: Appendix, Note A.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WISDOM OF THE PIXIES.

In the meantime how fared it with Faith and Sophia? The hours of
captivity dragged wearily along. The nagging and petty annoyance of
their keeper were hard to bear, but their chief dread was the coming of
S