of a
savage; so, thinks I, here comes them blackguard pagans again, to attack
the settlement; and before I could hide out of the way, a naked savage
almost ran into my arms. He was sea-green in the face with fright, and
blood was running over his right arm.

"The moment he saw me, instead of splitting me up with his knife and
eating me alive, as these fellers are so fond of doin', he gave a start,
and another great cry, and doubled on his track like a hare. His cry
was answered by a shout from half a dozen sailors, who burst out of the
thicket at that moment, and I saw they were in pursuit of him. Down I
went at once behind a thick bush, and the whole lot o' the blind bats
passed right on in full cry, within half an inch of my nose. And I
never saw sich a set o' piratical-looking villains since I was born. I
felt quite sure that yon schooner is the pirate that has been doing so
much mischief hereabouts, so I came back as fast as my legs could carry
me, to tell you what I had seen. There, you have got all that I know of
the matter now."

"You are wrong, boy--the schooner you saw is not the pirate, it is the
_Foam_. Strange, very strange!" muttered Henry.

"What's strange," inquired the lad.

"Not the appearance of the wounded nigger," answered the other; "I can
explain all about him, but the sailors--that puzzles me."

Henry then related the morning's adventure to his young companion.

"But," continued he, after detailing all that the reader already knows,
"I cannot comprehend how the pirates you speak of could have landed
without their vessel being in sight; and that nothing is to be seen from
the mountain tops except the _Talisman_ on the one side of the island
and the _Foam_ on the other, I can vouch for. Boats might lie concealed
among the rocks on the shore, no doubt. But no boats would venture to
put ashore with hostile intentions, unless the ship to which they
belonged were within sight. As for the crew of the _Foam_, they are
ordinary seamen, and not likely to amuse themselves chasing wounded
savages, even if they were allowed to go ashore, which I think is not
likely, for Gascoyne knows well enough, that that side of the island is
inhabited by the pagans, who would as soon kill and eat a man as they
would a pig."

"Sooner,--the monsters," exclaimed the boy indignantly, for he had, on
more than one occasion, been an eye-witness, of the horrible practice of
cannibalism which prevails, even at th