Frankland and Mr Brand had told us often--that in all
difficulties and troubles we should put our trust in God--that we found
any comfort. How much we now wished for a Bible, that we might read it
to each other! We now saw more clearly than we had ever before done its
inestimable value. There were several on board the _Dove_, but we were
not likely to be able to get them.

The poor doctor was more to be pitied than we were. He grew thinner and
thinner every day. Evidently he felt his captivity very much. His
prospect of escaping was much smaller than ours, because he was of far
greater use to the pirates than we were. We might have been of some
service to them as navigators, but without our books and instruments we
could do very little for them even in that respect.

Several more days went by in this way. The pirates now began to grow
fidgety, and they were constantly going to the mast-head, and spent the
day in looking out on every side round the horizon, in search of land or
a vessel, we could not tell which. At last, one forenoon, one of the
look-outs shouted from aloft, "A sail! a sail!"

"Where away?" asked the captain, who till that moment seemed to have
been half asleep on deck. He sprang to his feet, and he, with every one
on board, in an instant was full of life and animation.

"On the lee bow," answered the man. "She is a large ship, standing to
the southward." The wind was from the westward.

Several of the officers and men hurried aloft to have a look at the
stranger. When they came down they seemed highly satisfied.

"She's a merchantman from California," observed one. "She'll have
plenty of gold dust on board."

"She's the craft to suit us, then," observed a second.

"She's a heavy vessel, and the fellows aboard will fight for their
gold," remarked a third.

"Who cares? a little fighting will make the prize of more value," cried
another. "We'll show them what they'll get by resistance."

The word was now passed along to clear the decks for action, and, with
the men at their guns, we bore down on the stranger.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

VOYAGE IN THE PIRATE VESSEL.

The stranger saw our approach, and from the eager way in which we
carried on sail, those on board must have had some suspicion of the
character of the schooner. She was a fine large ship, and was evidently
a fast craft, but still the schooner managed to overhaul her. As we had
hitherto stood on under easy sail, the _D