ill stop with Mr Burnett. I
leave him in your charge, and--Here! Who's that? Winks, you stop with
my son and Mr Burnett there. Be ready to help them if they are in
trouble."

"Ay, ay, sir," cried the carpenter, and he drew himself up with his
rifle-butt resting on his bare toes.

"There, Fitz," said Poole, grinning with delight; "you can't go back to
your old tea-kettle of a gunboat and say that we didn't take care of
you."

"Such nonsense!" cried Fitz, flushing. "Any one would think that I was
a child. I don't see anything to laugh at," and as he spoke the boy
turned sharply from Poole's mirthful face to look searchingly at the
carpenter, who was in the act of wiping a smile from his lips.

"Oh, no, sir, I warn't a-laughing," the man said, with his eyes
twinkling. "What you see's a hecho like, or what you call a reflection
from Mr Poole's physiomahogany. This 'ere's a nice game, aren't it!
I'm sorry for those pore chaps aboard, and our two mates in the boat.
They'll be missing all the fun."

"Why, Poole," cried Fitz suddenly, "I forgot all about them. I suppose
they'll have gone back to the schooner."

"Not they!"

"Then you think the enemy's captured them?"

"That I don't," replied Poole. "They'll have run the boat in, according
to orders, in amongst the shade, and be lying there as snug as can be,
waiting till they're wanted."

"Well, I don't know so much about that, Mr Poole, sir," put in the
carpenter. "Strikes me that as sure as nails don't hold as tight as
screws unless they are well clinched, when we have driven off these here
varmin, and go to look for them in that 'ere boat we shall find them
gone."

"What do you mean?" cried Poole.

"Muskeeters will have eaten them up. They are just awful under the
bushes and among the trees."

"Look there," said Fitz, interrupting the conversation. "Seem to be
more coming on."

"That's just what I was thinking, Mr Burnett, sir. Reinforcement,
don't you call it? My! How wild our lads will be, 'specially old
Butters, when I come to tell 'em all about it. Makes me feel like being
on board a man-o'-war again, all the more so for having a young officer
at my elber."

"Don't you be insolent," said Fitz.

"Well!" cried the carpenter. "I say, Mr Poole, sir, I call that 'ard.
I didn't mean cheek, sir, really."

"All right, Chips, I believe you," said Fitz excitedly. "Look, Poole;
they're getting well round us. Look how they are swarming over