and when
we're in company with the pirates we fly theirs. Any way, we've taken
two Dutch ships and an English one since we got out here, and that's
put money in our pockets, which is more than Captain Sims would have
done with his lawyering."

"And I suppose I am to be carried to Gheriah and given up to the
pirates, like Mr. Sims," I said bitterly.

But this the boatswain swore with many oaths he would not permit.
Nevertheless I could see that he was strongly attached to my cousin's
interest, and not disposed to venture anything openly against him.
Indeed, he tried very hard to persuade me to come into their plans,
offering to reconcile me with Rupert if I would consent to do this. To
these proposals, however, I would by no means consent, being more
experienced by this time than when I had joined them at Yarmouth, and
having a pretty shrewd notion of how Mr. Clive would regard my former
comrades if they should fall into his hands. Finally, I besought the
boatswain for news of Marian.

He drew a grave face at this name.

"Athelstane, lad, I would rather you'd ask me any other question than
that. Plague take the girl, she was the cause of all the mischief
between you and the lieutenant! Forget her, lad, forget her, she's not
worth your troubling after."

But he might as well have pressed me to forget who I was, and the
situation into which my eagerness to hear of Marian had brought me.

Finding me resolute to know about her, he told me this much:--

"She came aboard while the _Fair Maid_ was in the river, to nurse your
cousin as he lay ill of his wounds. But I believe he had been tempting
her before that to come out to the Indies with him, and she held back
for him to go to church with her first, and this he didn't care enough
for her to do. Anyhow, it ended in his getting round her to trust
herself with him, and he swore he would carry her straight to Calcutta
and hand her over to her people there. When we got out here, and she
found he had no such purpose, but meant to keep her in the fortress as
long as it suited his pleasure, there was a terrible business betwixt
them. But you know what the lieutenant is, and that it ain't a few
tears from a woman that'll turn him from anything he has a mind to do.
So he just set her ashore by force, and there she is, as much a
prisoner as Mr. Sims himself."

I was overcome with the horror of this news, though I suppose it was
what I should have expected from my cousin's ch