the Pirates, to lay down their arms and go
away; and everybody had been hustling him
about and tumbling over him, while he was
calling for pen and ink to write it with.
Mrs. Pordage, too, had some curious ideas
about the British respectability of her nightcap
(which had as many frills to it, growing
in layers one inside another, as if it was a
white vegetable of the artichoke sort), and
she wouldn't take the nightcap off, and would
be angry when it got crushed by the other
ladies who were handing things about, and,
in short, she gave as much trouble as her
husband did. But, as we were now forming
for the defence of the place, they were both
poked out of the way with no ceremony.
The children and ladies were got into the
little trench which surrounded the silver-
house (we were afraid of leaving them in any
of the light buildings, lest they should be set
on fire), and we made the best disposition we
could. There was a pretty good store, in
point of amount, of tolerable swords and
cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also,
perhaps a score or so of spare muskets.
Those were brought out. To my astonishment,
little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for
a doll and a baby, was not only very active
in that service, but volunteered to load the
spare arms.

"For, I understand it well," says she,
cheerfully, without a shake in her voice.

"I am a soldier's daughter and a sailor's
sister, and I understand it too," says Miss
Maryon, just in the same way.

Steady and busy behind where I stood,
those two beautiful and delicate young women
fell to handling the guns, hammering the
flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing
others to pass up powder and bullets
from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best
of tried soldiers.

Serjeant Drooce had brought in word that
the pirates were very strong in numbers—
over a hundred, was his estimate—and that
they were not, even then, all landed; for, he
had seen them in a very good position on the
further side of the Signal Hill, evidently
waiting for the rest of their men to come up.
In the present pause, the first we had had
since the alarm, he was telling this over
again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey
suddenly cried out:

"The signal! Nobody has thought of the
signal!"

We knew of no signal, so we could not
have thought of it. "What signal may you
mean, sir?" says Serjeant Drooce, looking
sharp at him.

"There is a pile of wood upon the Signal
Hill. If it could be lighted—which never
has been done yet—it would be a signal of
distress to the mainland."

Charker cries, directly: "Serjeant Drooce,
dispatch me on that duty. Give me the two
men who were on guard with me to-night,
and I'll light the fire, if it can be done."

"And if it can't, Corporal——" Mr. Macey
strikes in.

"Look at these ladies and children, sir!"
says Charker. "I'd sooner light myself, than
not try any chance to save them."

We gave him a Hurrah!—it burst from us,
come of it what might—and he got his two
men, and was let out at the gate, and crept
away. I had no sooner come back to my
place from being one of the party to handle
the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low
voice behind me:

"Davis, will you look at this powder. This
is not right?"

I turned my head. Christian George King
again, and treachery again! Sea-water had
been conveyed into the magazine, and every
grain of powder was spoiled!

"Stay a moment," said Serjeant Drooce,
when I had told him, without causing a
movement in a muscle of his face: "look to your
pouch, my lad. You Tom Packer, look to
your pouch, confound you! Look to your
pouches, all you Marines."

The same artful savage had got at them,
somehow or another, and the cartridges were
all unserviceable. "Hum!" says the
Serjeant, "Look to your loading, men. You are
right so far?"

Yes; we were right so far.

"Well, my lads, and gentlemen all," says the
Serjeant, "this will be a hand-to-hand affair,
and so much the better."

He treated himself to a pinch of snuff,
and stood up, square-shouldered and broad-
chested, in the light of the moon—which
was now very bright—as cool as if he was
waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet,
and we all stood quiet, for a matter of
something like half-an-hour. I took notice from
such whispered talk as there was, how little
we that the silver did not belong to, thought
about it, and how much the people that it
did belong to, thought about it. At the end
of the half-hour, it was reported from the
gate that Charker and the two were falling
back on us, pursued by about a dozen.

"Sally! Gate-party, under Gill Davis,"
says the Sergeant, "and bring 'em in! Like
men, now!"

We we're not long about it, and we brought
them in. "Don't take me," says Charker,
holding me round the neck, and stumbling
down at my feet when the gate was fast,
"don't take me near the ladies or the
children, Gill. They had better not see
Death, till it can't be helped. They'll see
it soon enough."

"Harry!" I answered, holding up his head.
"Comrade!"

He was cut to pieces. The signal had
been secured by the first pirate party that
lauded; his hair was all singed off, and his
face was blackened with the running pitch
from a torch.

He made no complaint of pain, or of
anything. "Good bye, old chap," was all he