id Schillie to me, "they are not alarmed about us, you see.
They must have known of this island, and the great snake, and been
afraid of it; now they see its skin you'll see they'll be all over the
island. I misdoubt me, that big fellow is the King of the Pirates, whom
fate has wafted hither in compliance with my mad wishes; and that house
we found on the plain is his castle, and now he'll go and take
possession, and find out that somebody has been beforehand. I don't like
their looks, June, we must keep close at present. But what infatuated
geese we are to sit here, when we must run to Tir-y-hir, and do away
with as much of our whereabouts as we can."

Leaving the children to watch, with Sybil in charge of them, we ran for
our lives. Here we found the wise and thoughtful Madame beforehand with
us, she and the maids had been moving everything, and it required but
willing hands and quick work to pile up stones, and remove all vestiges
of the cavern. Of course our house would speak for itself. Luckily we
had been living in the cavern for a month, so that no very recent traces
of us could be discovered. Gatty grumbled a little, indeed I don't think
she would have worked had she not anticipated some amusement in watching
the new arrivals, whilst they must be utterly ignorant of our
existence. Schillie worked with a will; from the first I think she had a
foreboding that all was not right about these people. We now went back,
and found the watchers full of news, and also full of squabbles amongst
themselves. More people had come from the ship; fires had been lighted.
Every one had gone to look at the big snake's skin. Working was going
on; symptoms of a tent had been commenced. The squabbles amongst the
little ones arose because of their different opinions of the new comers.
Oscar voted them pirates, and declared he would shoot the first one that
came near us. The little girls declared they must be friends, and would
be sure to take them home if they gave them money. Felix was most
anxious to be amongst them and get on board, and go home, and every
other variety of scheme, but the promise from Oscar that he should have
the first chance of shooting the first pirate completely turned him, and
he became perfectly convinced that they were horrible robbers, perhaps
slave-stealers, and did he not shoot them he and his Mother would be
stolen and sold for slaves to different masters. A climax of fate that
seemed to him would settle th