and seven more for each side; and leave the
other nine for the rear-guard. A fourth
mule for me, when I get tired, and another
Indian to carry my guitar."

His guitar! To think of the murderous
thief having a turn for strumming tunes, and
wanting to cultivate it on such an expedition
as ours! I could hardly believe my eyes when
I saw the guitar brought forward in a neat
green case, with the piratical skull and cross-
bones and the Pirate Captain's initials painted
on it in white.

"I can stand a good deal," whispers Tom
Packer to me, looking hard at the guitar;
"but con-found me, Davis, if it's not a trifle
too much to be taken prisoner by such a
fellow as that!"

The Pirate Captain lights another cigar.

"March! " says he, with a screech like a
cat, and a flourish with his sword, of the sort
that a stage-player would give at the head of
a mock army.

We all moved off, leaving the clump of
trees to the right, going, we knew not whither,
to unknown sufferings and an unknown fate.
The land that lay before us was wild and
open, without fences or habitations. Here
and there, cattle wandered about over it, and
a few stray Indians. Beyond, in the
distance, as far as we could see, rose a prospect
of mountains and forests. Above us, was the
pitiless sun, in a sky that was too brightly
blue to look at. Behind us, was the calm
murmuring ocean, with the dear island home
which the women and children had lost,
rising in the distance like a little green
garden on the bosom of the sea. After half-
an-hour's walking, we began to descend into
the plain, and the last glimpse of the Island
of Silver-Store disappeared from our view.

The order of march which we prisoners
now maintained among ourselves, being the
order which, with certain occasional variations,
we observed for the next three days, I
may as well give some description of it in
this place, before I get occupied with other
things, and forget it.

I myself, and the sailor I have mentioned
under the name of Short, led the march.
After us came Miss Maryon, and Mr. and
Mrs. Macey. They were followed by two of
my comrades of the Marines with Mrs.
Pordage, Mrs. Belltott, and two of the strongest of
the ladies to look after them. Mr. Fisher, the
ship's boy, and the three remaining men of the
sloop's crew, with the rest of the women and
children came next; Tom Packer, taking
care of Serjeant Drooce, brought up the
rear. So long as we got on quickly enough,
the pirates showed no disposition to
interfere with our order of march; but, if
there were any signs of lagging—and God
knows it was hard enough work for a
man to walk under that burning sun!—
the villains threatened the weakest of our
company with the points of their swords.
The younger among the children gave out,
as might have been expected, poor things,
very early on the march. Short and I set
the example of taking two of them up, pick-
a-back, which was followed directly by the
rest of the men. Two of Mrs. Macey's three
children fell to our share; the eldest, travelling
behind us on his father's back. Short hoisted
the next in age, a girl, on his broad shoulders.
I see him now as if it was yesterday,
with the perspiration pouring down his fat
face and bushy whiskers, rolling along as if
he was on the deck of a ship, and making a
sling of his neck-handkerchief, with his clever
sailor's fingers, to support the little girl on
his back. "I expect you'll marry me, my
darling, when you grow up," says he, in his
oily, joking voice. And the poor child, in
her innocence, laid her weary head down on
his shoulder, and gravely and faithfully
promised that she would.

A lighter weight fell to my share. I had
the youngest of the children, the pretty
little boy, already mentioned, who had been
deaf and dumb from his birth. His mother's
voice trembled sadly, as she thanked
me for taking him up, and tenderly put
his little dress right while she walked
behind me. "He is very little and light
of his age," says the poor lady, trying
hard to speak steady. "He won't give you
much trouble, Davis—he has always been a
very patient child from the first." The boy's
little frail arms clasped themselves round my
neck while she was speaking; and something
or other seemed to stop in my throat the
cheerful answer that I wanted to make. I
walked on with what must have looked, I
am afraid, like a gruff silence; the poor child
humming softly on my back, in his unchanging,
dumb way, till he hummed himself to
sleep. Often and often, since that time, in
dreams, I have felt those small arms round my
neck again, and have heard that dumb
murmuring song in my ear, dying away fainter
and fainter, till nothing was left but the light
breath rising and falling regularly on my
cheek, telling me that my little fellow-prisoner
had forgotten his troubles in sleep.

We marched, as well as I could guess,
somewhere about seven miles that day—a
short spell enough, judging by distance, but
a terrible long one judging by heat. Our
halting place was by the banks of a stream,
across which, at a little distance, some wild
pigs were swimming as we came up. Beyond
us, was the same view of forests and
mountains that I have already mentioned; and all
round us, was a perfect wilderness of flowers.
The shrubs, the bushes, the ground, all blazed
again with magnificent colours, under the
evening sun. When we were ordered to
halt, wherever we set a child down, there
that child had laps and laps full of flowers
growing within reach of its hand. We sat
on flowers, eat on flowers, slept at night on
flowers—any chance handful of which would
have been well worth a golden guinea among