He again drew out his watch and pistol;
but, this time, it was my head that he touched
with the barrel.

"When Tom Packer spoke for himself,
miss, a little while ago," I said, "please to
consider that he spoke for me."

"Another brave man!" said the Pirate
Captain, with his ape's grin. "Am I to fire
my pistol this time, or am I to put it back
again as I did before?"

Miss Maryon did not seem to hear him.
Her kind eyes rested for a moment on my
face, and then looked up to the bright Heaven
above us.

"Whether I sign, or whether I do not sign,"
she said, "we are still in the hands of God,
and the future which His wisdom has
appointed will not the less surely come."

With those words she placed the paper on
my breast, signed it, and handed it back to
the Pirate Captain.

"This is our secret, Davis," she whispered.
"Let us keep the dreadful knowledge of it
to ourselves as long as we can."

I have another singular confession to
make—I hardly expect anybody to believe
me when I mention the circumstance—but
it is not the less the plain truth that, even
in the midst of that frightful situation, I felt,
for a few moments, a sensation of happiness
while Miss Maryon's hand was holding the
paper on my breast, and while her lips were
telling me that there was a secret between us
which we were to keep together.

The Pirate Captain carried the signed paper
at once to his mate.

"Go back to the Island," he says, "and
nail that with your own hands on the lid of the
largest chest. There is no occasion to hurry
the business of shipping the Treasure,
because there is nobody on the Island to make
signals that may draw attention to it from
the sea. I have provided for that; and I
have provided for the chance of your being
outmanoeuvred afterwards, by English, or
other cruisers. Here are your sailing
orders" (he took them from his pocket while
he spoke), "your directions for the disposal
of the Treasure, and your appointment of the
day and the place for communicating again
with me and my prisoners. I have done my
part—go you, now, and do yours."

Hearing the clearness with which he gave
his orders; knowing what the devilish
scheme was that he had invented for preventing
the recovery of the Treasure, even if our
ships happened to meet and capture the
pirates at sea; remembering what the look
and the speech of him had been, when he put
his pistol to my head and Tom Packer's; I
began to understand how it was that this
little, weak, weazen, wicked spider had got
the first place and kept it among the villains
about him.

The mate moved off, with hia orders,
towards the sea. Before he got there, the
Pirate Captain beckoned another of the crew
to come to him; and spoke a few words in
his own, or in some other foreign language.
I guessed what they meant, when I saw
thirty of the pirates told off together, and set
in a circle all round us. The rest were
marched away after the mate. In the same
manner the Sambos were divided next. Ten,
including Christian George King, were left
with us; and the others were sent down to the
canoes. When this had been done, the Pirate
Captain looked at his watch; pointed to some
trees, about a mile off, which fringed the land
as it rose from the beach; said to an American
among the pirates round us, who seemed to
hold the place of second mate, "In two hours
from this time;" and then walked away
briskly, with one of his men after him, to
some baggage piled up below us on the
beach.

We were marched off at once to the shady
place under the trees, and allowed to sit
down there, in the cool, with our guard in a
ring round us. Feeling certain from what I
saw, and from what I knew to be
contained in the written paper signed by Miss
Maryon, that we were on the point of
undertaking a long journey up the country, I
anxiously examined my fellow prisoners to
see how fit they looked for encountering
bodily hardship and fatigue: to say nothing
of mental suspense and terror, over and above.

With all possible respect for an official
gentleman, I must admit that Mr.
Commissioner Pordage struck me as being,
beyond any comparison, the most helpless
individual in our unfortunate company.
What with the fright he had suffered, the
danger he had gone through, and the
bewilderment of finding himself torn clean away
from his safe Government moorings, his poor
unfortunate brains seemed to be as completely
discomposed as his Diplomatic coat. He was
perfectly harmless and quiet, but also
perfectly light-headed—as anybody could
discover who looked at his dazed eyes or
listened to his maundering talk. I tried him
with a word or two about our miserable
situation; thinking that, if any subject would
get a trifle of sense out of him, it must surely
be that.

"You will observe," said Mr. Pordage,
looking at the torn cuffs of his Diplomatic
coat instead of at me, "that I cannot take
cognisance of our situation. No memorandum
of it has been drawn up; no report in
connexion with it has been presented to me.
I cannot possibly recognise it until the necessary
minutes and memorandums and reports
have reached me through the proper channels.
When our miserable situation presents
itself to me, on paper, I shall bring it under
the notice of Government; and Government,
after a proper interval, will bring it back
again under my notice; and then I shall
have something to say about it. Not a
minute before,—no, my man, not a minute
before!"