"I should have liked to have burnt her, as I said I would do," observed
the corsair, as the _Muscadine_ went down bows foremost, "all standing,"
with a graceful plunge; "but I was afraid of attracting notice.
However, she is safe now at the bottom, at all events; and sunken ships,
like dead men, tell no tales!"

Captain Harding made no reply.

His heart was too full at seeing his ship, which he regarded almost like
a living thing, so recklessly destroyed before his eyes; it was the ship
which he had first gone to sea in as a boy, and which it had been the
ambition of his life to command. It was too much, and turning his head
away as the tips of her spars sank from view, he wiped away a tear from
his eye with the back of his horny hand.

Nothing that the pirates had done hitherto affected him like this.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.

AMONGST THE BRIGANDS.

As soon as the _Muscadine_ had succumbed to her ill fate so tragically,
the felucca made sail at once from the place, steering north, as well as
Captain Harding could make out; for neither he nor the boys were allowed
to look at the compass, and they none of them spoke to Tompkins since
his betrayal of the captain's trust, although he could probably have
told them, for he "appeared to be hail fellow well met" with his
captors, as Charley said.

The night passed, and again another day and night, without anything
noteworthy happening, the swift craft sailing at racehorse speed, and
always in the same direction, to the best of their belief, as if towards
some fixed destination; but the corsair did not enlighten them, and,
indeed, did not address them during the interval.

Towards the evening of the second day on which they were on board her,
the felucca drew near land, from which she held off and on until the
shades of night covered her movements, when she approached close to the
shore, and a boat was lowered over her side.

The pirate chief then, for the first time since the _Muscadine_
disappeared under the waters of the Aegean Sea, addressed Captain
Harding and his companions, who had found the time of their captivity
hang wearily on their hands, although they were virtually free to walk
about on board their prison-house, with the exception of speaking to any
of the crew or looking at the compass, both of which were interdicted,
with significant threats whenever they tried to evade the prohibition.

"Now, captain," said the corsair, with an oily smile, whi