t you can be faithful to your own
captain, and mine, therefore, believes that he can trust you to do him a
service. Is he right?"

"Yes," answered Mr Gale, speaking for the rest of us; "anything which,
as honest men, we can do to help him we will gladly undertake."

"That's right," said the stranger. "You must know, then, that we have
here men of various nations. Many of them are Spaniards. They and
other foreigners have lately been growing more and more jealous of our
captain. He has done two or three things lately to offend their
prejudices, certainly. The consequence is, that they have hatched a
conspiracy, which has just been discovered, to murder him and all the
English in the place; you all will be among the first victims. In
asking you to fight for us, I invite you to fight for your own lives.
To show that I trust you, I have brought you some pistols and
ammunition, and a bundle of swords done up in this sail. The villains
have fixed on an hour before daybreak to begin the attack on us. Arm
yourselves, and be ready to sally forth at a moment's notice. They will
sound a trumpet as a signal to their party to begin the work of
slaughter. I will try to be here before then. If I am not, make your
way to Captain Ralph's quarters. He will have, before that, released
your captain, who will put himself at your head. You will also be
joined by four or five men, who, like me, will be glad to get away from
this den, and regain our liberty at any cost. I must stay no longer, or
I may be missed. Be prompt and firm, and we may come off conquerors.
Remember, however, it is victory or death for all of us!"

These words came like a thunder-clap among us. We could scarcely
believe our ears. Mr Gale, however, at once replied, that we would
undertake exactly to follow the stranger's directions, as we clearly
understood the dangerous predicament in which we all stood. The instant
he received our reply, he hurried from the loft, and we could see his
figure from our loophole proceeding to the upper part of the settlement.

Our first care was to examine the package, which we found contained the
arms he had promised. We immediately loaded the pistols, and buckled on
the cutlasses, and then stood ready to descend at the expected signal.
To men long shut up as we had been, any excitement is acceptable; so
that, far from feeling any alarm at what we had heard, scarcely anything
could have contributed so much to raise o