over the precipice."

"Poor fellow! Madre de Dios, what a melancholy tale! And the poor
wife?" asked Isabel.

"I never heard," replied Wyzinski. "A missionary should not marry, in
my opinion."

"There goes eight bells, and here comes the captain to take his watch,"
exclaimed Hughes.

True to the old instinct, Captain Weber's first impulse was to walk to
the binnacle, and then to glance aloft at his dismantled masts and
rigging.

Isabel seemed struck with the missionary's melancholy tale. She rose
and took the arm of the old seaman, who looked fondly into her face as
she walked by his side. The moon had not risen, but there was a strong
light over the sea, and before saying good night the girl gazed over the
brig's stern at the dark line of forest land and the myriads of dancing
fireflies. She then turned, but seemed struck with something. "I did
not know that there were rocks in the bay," she said, pointing to the
entrance.

Captain Weber did not understand French, but his eye followed the
direction of the girl's finger. There, sure enough, broad on the brig's
starboard bow lay three black points looking like rocks, but rising and
falling on the waves.

Dropping the girl's arm, he ran forward. "Mr Lowe, turn the hands up,
quickly and silently," he said, in a hoarse whisper; "arm the men at
once. Look handy! The Malays are upon us."

Volume 2, Chapter IV.

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S BAY.--THE PIRATES.

The "Halcyon," it will be remembered, was moored head and stern, but her
bows did not point to the opening of the bay. A warp had been run from
her starboard hawse-hole, and an anchor earned out far beyond the narrow
entrance, so as to enable Captain Weber to cast his ship in that
direction when he wished to sail. With his masts in the state they
were, and the weather besides dead calm, it would have been a slow and
tedious affair to move the brig from her anchorage. There were no
boarding-nettings now she no longer belonged to the navy, and but for
the missionary's warning, the "Halcyon" would have been wholly
unprepared for resistance. Creeping aft, Captain Weber rejoined the
party on the quarter-deck.

Quietly and courteously he offered his arm to Dona Isabel, who, quite
unconscious of what was passing, was still looking into the night.

A glance at the entrance of the bay told him at once that the boats were
concentrating for a dash, but it told him too that help was at hand, for
several dark fig