er one night on the voyage
to the Isle of Palms, when she and Poopy and he were left alone
together; but he failed. After one or two efforts he ended by bursting
into tears, and then, choking himself violently with his own hands, said
that he was ashamed of himself, that he wasn't crying for himself but
for her, (Alice,) and that he hoped she wouldn't think the worse of him
for being so like a baby. Here he turned to Poopy, and in a most
unreasonable manner began to scold her for being at the bottom of the
whole mischief, in the middle of which he broke off, said that he
believed himself to be mad, and vowed he would blow out his own brains
first, and those of all the pirates afterwards. Whereupon he choked,
sobbed again, and rushed out of the cabin as if he really meant to
execute his last awful threat.

But poor Corrie only rushed away to hide from Alice the irrepressible
emotions that nearly burst his heart. Yes, Corrie was thoroughly
subdued by grief. But the spring was not broken, it was only crushed
flat by the weight of sorrow that lay like a millstone on his youthful
bosom.

The first thing that set his active brain a-going once more--thereby
overturning the weight of sorrow and causing the spring of his peculiar
spirit to rebound--was the sight of the two pirates hauling up the boat
and carrying off the oars.

"Ha! that's your game is it?" muttered the boy between his teeth, and
grasping the pole with both hands as if he wished to squeeze his fingers
into the wood. "You don't want to give us a chance of escaping, don't
you, eh! is that it? You think that because we're a small party, and
the half of us females, that we're cowed, and won't think of trying any
other way of escaping, do you? Oh yes, that's what you think; you know
it, you do, _but you're mistaken_," (he became terribly sarcastic and
bitter at this point;) "you'll find that you have got _men_ to deal
with, that you've not only caught a tartar, but _two_ tartars--one o'
them being ten times tartarer than the other. Oh, if--"

"What's all that you're saying, Corrie?" said Montague, stepping out of
the tent at that moment.

"O captain," said the boy, vehemently, "I wish I were a giant!"

"Why so, lad?"

"Because then I would wade out to that wreck, clap my shoulder to her
bow, shove her into deep water, carry you, and Alice, and Poopy aboard,
haul out the main-mast by the roots, make an oar of it, and scull out to
sea, havin' previous