“Babette,” said Captain Brand, as he tapped a spoon against his coffee-cup and puffed his cigar, while the stout dumb negress was removing the remains of the light dinner, “Babette, old girl, you know that we are going to leave here in a few days, and I should like to know whether you care to go with us or remain here on the island.”

The negress made a guttural grunt of assent, and nodded her head till the ends of her Madras turban fluttered.

“Ho! you do, eh? Well, my Baba, I shall be sorry to leave you, for you will be very lonely here, and it may be a long, very long time before I come back.”

Babette jerked her chin up this time, and did not grunt.

“It’s all the same, eh? old lady! Well, I shall leave enough to eat to last you a lifetime; but you will have to change your quarters, my Baba, and live in the padre’s shed, for I––a––don’t think this house will be inhabitable long after I am gone.”

The negress gave another grunt and nod of assent.

“Yes. Well, old lady, the matter is decided, then; but, in case you should have any visitors here after we have gone, you won’t take any trouble to describe what you have seen here? No! That shake of your head convinces me––not if they roast you alive?”

The hideous sign of understanding that the woman expressed in her dumb way would have convinced any body without the trouble of uttering a word.

“Bueno!” said Captain Brand; “that will do for to-day.”

Rising as he spoke, he stepped to a cabinet, slipped a large handful of doubloons in his trowsers pocket, put on his hat, and walked out.

“Capitano, the people are thirsty, and desire a barrel of wine.”

“Not a drop, Señor Pedillo––not so much as would wet the bill of a musquito! To-morrow at daylight let all hands be called, for we have work to do, and we must be quick to do it.”

Pedillo slunk away, abashed by the positive tone of his commander; and Captain Brand, with his companion, passed on to the domicile of the padre and doctor. Pausing at the open door of the shed, they looked in. The padre was lying flat on his back on his narrow bed, with his mouth wide open, and snoring like a key-bugle with leaky stops; while his beads and crucifix––misplaced emblems in contact with drunkenness and debauchery––were reposing on his ample chest. The doctor was sitting beside his own couch, whispering words of childish comfort to the little boy, whose pale cheeks and brown curls reposed on the pillow of the bed. The poor child’s thin, limp fingers rested like the petals of a drooping lily in the dark, bony hand of his friend, and his dim hazel eyes were turned sadly toward him.

“Holloa, amigos!” shouted Captain Brand, in a hearty voice. “We are losing the glorious sea-breeze. Vamanos! let us take a stroll to the Tiger’s Trap.”

Hereupon Captain Brand entered the room, and gave the padre a violent tweak of the nose, at the same time puffing a volume of cigar-smoke into his beastly mouth, which combined effort brought the holy father to life in a trice, choking and sputtering, as he arose, a jargon of paternosters, which an indifferent hearer might have mistaken for a volley of execrations, so savagely were they uttered.

“Take a sip of Geneva, my padre. There it is on the table. Ah! do you call half a bottle a sip? Well! Come, doctor, let us be moving.”

“The arguments you have urged, monsieur, and the views you entertain, have a certain amount of reason in them. It is true you were deceived in coming here, but yet you swore to remain and not betray us when you did come. Well––ah! don’t interrupt me; I divine what you are going to say––you did not know what our real character was. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I can not consent to your going away with that old rascal, Don Ignaçio, there––that is, if he would take you, which I think he would not, as your presence on board might compromise him with the Cuban authorities; and,” went on Captain Brand, as he crossed his legs, and held his fine Panama hat on his head as a ruffle of the sea-breeze shot around the rock, “with respect to your remaining here on the island, you will only have that dumb old beast of a Babette for company; and it is highly probable that the English or American cruisers will be down upon you before a change of the moon, and they might––a––hang you, perhaps, for a pirate. Ho! ho!”

“If Don Ignaçio declines to take me, Captain Brand, of course I can not go in the felucca; but, let come what will, I am resolved not to sail in the ‘Centipede.’”

The pirate regarded the doctor for a moment with a cold, freezing look, not wanting, however, in a partial glimmer of respect and admiration, as he thus resolutely stated his determination; and then, putting his finger lightly on the doctor’s arm, as he saw Don Ignaçio and the padre draw near, he said impressively, in a low tone,

“Monsieur le Docteur, do not make hasty resolutions. I command here, and my will is law. I will turn the matter over, however, in my mind, and give you a final decision before we part to-night. Now let us return. The sun is down, and the rocks are slippery.”

“Well, caballeros, let us have a little social amusement,” said Captain Brand, as he sat down at the table in the padre’s and doctor’s quarters, and wound up his splendid watch, the present from the Captain General of Cuba. “But bear in mind that we must break up at midnight, for our compadre here has a multitude of articles to get on board his felucca to-night, and I must be astir at daylight.”

Did Captain Brand think, while he turned the key of that gold repeater, of the bloodstained wretch he had put to death in the morning, who was lying stark and still in his narrow, damp resting-place, or of the poor little sufferer who had been torn from his heart-broken mother sleeping near him? Oh no, certainly not. Captain Brand was thinking of a little game of monté.

The padre lugged out a small store of dollars, and a gold ounce or two, and other stray bits of gold, down to quartitos or eighths of doubloons––all of it donations made him for remission of sins and absolutions, presented at one time and another from the pirates of his flock, such donations falling in pretty rapidly after a successful cruise, but dwindling away to most contemptible gifts long before his flock took to sea again.

Captain Brand was very liberal to his crew, dividing a great deal of money with them, but, since he rarely visited any foreign ports, they had little chance of squandering it; and in the end it served merely as a gaming currency to play with, and eventually coming back to him as contributions for stores, ammunition, rigging, and so forth. The captain, therefore, was a large gainer by the operation, as most of the articles in eating and drinking, and the vessel’s outfit, were––as we know––generally presented to him, so that he was enabled to stow away the cash for future gratification.

Don Ignaçio Sanchez was likewise a moneyed man, and came provided with a long pouch of solid gold, which he made into little piles before him of the exact size of those of the captain. The doctor, however, declined to play, and sat an indifferent spectator of the game.

“Let us begin, señores!” exclaimed the Don, as he rapidly shuffled the cards, and his keen, black spark of fire lit up with animation at the rich prospect before him. “We are losing precious time. I’ll be banquero! Vamanos!”

“Ho!” growled Captain Brand, “maldito a la sota! I have lost my last stake!”

Even while he spoke the poor little boy murmured in a sobbing voice, “Mamma, chère mamma!” and turned uneasily in his little nest from his fitful slumber.

“That crying imp again!” said the now angry pirate, as he hurled the padre’s half empty gin jug in the direction of the couch, which crashed against the wall, and fell in a shower of glass splinters over the little sleeper.

The child gave one terrified shriek, and, starting from the bed in his little night-dress, now soiled and torn, he ran and threw himself on his knees before the doctor. Another bottle was raised aloft by the long muscular arm of the pirate; but, before you could wink, that arm was arrested, and the missile twisted from his grasp.

“For shame, you coward! Don’t harm the boy. He will die soon enough in this awful den without having his brains dashed out.”

“Ho, Monsieur le Docteur!” muttered the villain, looking as if he would like to taste the heart’s-blood of the resolute man who stood before him, as he pushed a hand into his waistcoat pocket, “do you presume to call names and oppose my will?”

But, controlling his passion with a violent contortion of face that would have made one’s blood run cold to see it, he changed his tone and said,

“Nonsense, doctor; you seem to take rather a strong interest in the brat––possibly an injudicious one; but, since he is my prize, you know, by law, come––what will you give for him? Ah! happy thought, we will play for him! There, deal away, compadre. Sota and cavallo! I take the knave again, and you ten doubloons against the boy on the horse.”

The doctor said not a word, but nodded assent, and seemed absorbed in the game.

“Presto! Turn the cards, you old sinner! Quick! Por dios! horse has kicked me, and the knave loses! Monsieur, the brat is yours!”

Then starting up, Captain Brand hastily pulled out his watch, and said, “Hola, caballeros, the time is up! I must say good-night.”

Don Ignaçio’s brown thin fingers, like a dentist’s steel nippers, laid down the cards, and carefully picked up his winnings, even to the smallest bit of the precious metal, and dropped it piece by piece into his long pouch, following them each with his glittering eye, like a magpie peering into a narrow-necked bottle, and smiling with his wrinkled old lips as the dull chink of the coin fell upon his ear. When he had performed this operation, he tied up the mouth of the bag as if he was choking somebody to death; and then, twitching something which was partly hidden in his sleeve, he arose in readiness to go out.

As, however, Captain Brand turned to follow his compadre, he looked carelessly toward the doctor, and said,

“By the way, monsieur, I have made up my mind with respect to our conversation to-day, and you shall remain on the island. No thanks. Adieu. Now, Don Ignaçio, if your men and boats are at the cove, we will make sharp work with your business. Vamanos!”

When the pirate stood in his saloon on the morning subsequent to the pleasurable events of the Sunday previous, he, as well as his saloon, presented altogether a different aspect. The apartment had been stripped of all its rare and costly furniture, cabinets, candelabra, plate, china, and glass, and nothing of value was left save the camphor trunks on the floor, the cane-bottomed settee, a few chairs, and a table. All the beautiful things, ornamental as well as useful, had disappeared, even to the rich packages of merchandise in the great vault beneath. The late possessor, however, of all that worldly wealth did not appear to be at all discomposed, or to cherish the faintest pang of regret at his loss. In truth, he seemed to be relieved from an uncomfortable load of responsibility; and feeling assured, perhaps, that in roaming about the world he could collect a still more valuable collection––only give him time––and he would exercise his critical taste with every pleasing variety. It was thus he consoled himself as he stood there in his now denuded room, attired in a pair of coarse canvas trowsers, a red flannel shirt, with a short sharp hanger on his hip, and a double-barreled pistol in his belt––quite the costume in which he so singularly shocked Doña Lucia, whose lovely miniature once hung there on the wall in company with the other miserable victims of his lust.

Captain Brand had just entered his dwelling, having been up and actively occupied ever since we last parted with him. Now he had come for a cup of tea and dry toast; and, while Babette was bringing that simple breakfast, the pirate stood, tall, erect, and powerful, with one muscular arm resting high above his head on the side of the doorway, and the other lying lightly on the shark’s-skin hilt of his cutlass, looking out to seaward––a very model, as he was, of a cool, prudent, desperate villain.

Captain Brand waved his hand in adieu to the felucca, which, with the wind off shore, had crept through the coral gateway, and, with her great lateen sail and green glancing bottom, was rising and falling on the long swell as she slipped away to the eastward. He then gulped down his tea, made one or two savage bites at his toast, and again walked out to the veranda, descended the ladder, and took his course toward the basin.

There, too, the scene had changed; and instead of the tranquil, shelly shore, only agitated by the musical rippling from the pure little inlet, the faint cry of a sea-gull, or the chirps of the lizards in the crevices of the rocks across the basin, those sounds had given place to the nimble feet and voices of busy sailors. The “Centipede,” also, had been towed from her moorings to a jetty which projected into the water from the shore, and there she lay, careened down, her keel half out of the water, with a dozen of her crew scrubbing her lean sides till the green-coated copper came flashing out in the sunlight like burnished gold. With her slanting masts lashed to the jetty, carpenters were engaged reducing the length of the fore-mast, and trimming out a spar for a new bowsprit. The long gun, with its carriage, lay near, and artisans were at work at a temporary forge, hammering out bolts and straps to replace those which were weakened by long service. On the shore, too, were a score or more of the piratical gang––Spaniards, negroes, Indians, Italians, and who not––ferocious-looking scoundrels, busy as bees, splicing and knotting ropes, stretching new rigging, cutting running gear from the coils of hemp or Manilla-grass rope, or making spun-yarn and chafing-mats; while beneath the low mat sheds hard by, sail-makers were stitching away with their shining needles, making a set of square sails for the changed rig of the “Centipede,” or repairing old sails. But this was not all; for in a shed beyond was the armorer, with a few hands, grinding pikes and cutlasses, and cleaning small arms; while farther still was the gunner and his mate, filling powder-cases for the long gun and swivels, and making up musket and pistol ball-cartridges.

At the first gray blush of dawn on the following day Captain Brand was astir again, and before the sun went down behind the waves the schooner “Centipede” had been transformed into a brigantine, her fore-mast reduced, new standing rigging fitted for it, with a new bowsprit and head-booms, her rail raised four or five feet by shifting bulwarks, and a temporary house built on deck over the long gun. She was also painted afresh, with a white streak; and, with false head-boards on her bows to hide her snakelike snout of a cutwater, no one, unless in the secret, could have known that the clumsy box of a merchantman lying there was once the low, swift, piratical schooner which had made so notorious a name in the West Indies. Still the work was driven on with scarcely any intermission––a few hours’ repose for the crew at night, and an hour for dinner in the day; but as for Captain Brand, he never slept at all––a doze for an hour or two, perhaps, on his settee in the saloon, and a cup of tea in the morning, with cigar-smoke, satisfied his frugal requirements. The next day, by noon, the water and stores were got on board the brigantine, her magazine stowed, the dunnage of the crew transferred from the sheds, the captain’s camphor trunks on board and cabin in order, the sails bent, anchors on the bows, and, swinging to a hawser made fast to the rocks, the vessel was ready to put to sea at any moment.

“And, Pedillo”––here the pirate’s voice dropped to a whisper––“come back after the vessel is secured, and bring that Maltese fellow without a nose with you. It will be as well, perhaps, for you to provide yourself with a few fathoms of raw-hide strips, as we may have occasion to use it. Quien sabe?”

Señor Pedillo’s black wiry beard fairly bristled as he grinned understandingly at his superior; and, getting into a bit of a canoe at the jetty, he paddled off to the brigantine to execute his orders.

Meanwhile Captain Brand slowly bent his steps toward the house under the crag, and entered his spacious saloon for the last time. On the bare table, too, was his last dinner, served on a few odd dishes and cracked plates.

“Babette, old girl!” said he, as he sat down to this repast, “you have a bottle of good Madeira, and a flask of Hock left? No?”

The negress shook her head violently, made the sign of the cross, and by other telegraphic motions gave her master to understand that Padre Ricardo had dropped in, drained both bottles, and then had reeled off on board the brigantine.

“The drunken selfish beast!” muttered Captain Brand; “it will be the last taste of wine he will swallow for a long time.”

The pirate was quite correct in his schemes for the padre’s reform, for the next copious draught the holy father imbibed was the briny salt water from the Caribbean Sea.

“Well, my Baba, a drop of water, then! Thank you, old lady. Here’s to your health while I am gone. There––you need not blubber so over my hand––good-by!” And so passed away from Captain Brand’s sight the only creature in the wide world who loved him.

Captain Brand did not linger long over his frugal dinner, and when he had finished, as if he had not had enough exercise for the last three days, he began to walk with long nervous strides across the saloon.

“He called me coward, did he? and dared to lay his hands on me! By my right arm, my Creole doctor, I’ll teach you not to call hard names again, and I’ll paralyze your hands for all time to come.”

The pirate’s jaws grated like a rusty bolt as he hissed out these murderous threats; but as his eye caught the squirming green silk rope as he swung round on his heel in his walk, he paused and muttered,

“That bit of stuff may be of use. I’ll take it by way of precaution.”

Hereupon he rapidly unrove the cord and coiled it away in the bosom of his shirt. Then looking at his watch, he said, “Ho! the time approaches, and here comes Pedillo.”

Lighting a cigar, he left his dwelling for the last time; and, after pausing to hear a report from Pedillo that his orders had been executed and the vessel all ready for sea, and whispering a few precise directions in return, Captain Brand mounted up the steep face of the crag again, and accosted the signal-man at the station.

“Any thing in sight?”

“Nothing to the eastward, capitano; but it has been a little hazy here away to the southward since meridian, and I can hardly see through it.”

“Bueno, my man! give me the glass. You can go on board the brigantine. I’ll take a last look myself.”

“It is a large and lofty ship; but, should she be a cruiser after me, she will find the bird flown and the nest empty. Ho, now for action!”

Springing down the precipitous declivity as he spoke, he paused a moment at a loophole of the vault beneath his dwelling, and puffing his cigar into a bright coal, he carefully twitched the match-rope which led to the train, opened the loose strands, and placed the fire to it. Waiting an instant till he saw the nitre sparkle as it ignited, he moved away with long, swinging strides toward the sheds. There, glancing through the now deserted halls the crew had occupied, where quantities of fagots, and kindling-wood, and barrels of pitch were standing, he continued on till he came to the quarters of the doctor. The doctor was standing at the open door on the thatched piazza, looking quietly at the brigantine, whose sails were loosed, and the vessel hanging by a sternfast, with her head just abreast the Tiger’s Trap.

“Ah! Monsieur le Docteur, I have merely called to bid you a final adieu before I go on board; and as I have a few moments left, and a few words to say, suppose you walk with me toward the chapel. Allons! there is a suspicious sail off there,” waving his glass in the direction, “and I wish to take a good look at her.”

“Doctor,” continued Captain Brand, as they reached the little esplanade facing the graves and church, “you will have no one left here on our island save our dumb Babette, and the chances are rather remote for your getting away, without, perhaps, some of the West India fleet should happen to drop in here, which I do not think probable. I rely, however, upon your keeping your oath, even if they do come, and not betraying the secrets you are acquainted with.”

The pirate said this in an off-hand, friendly way, as he had his glass leveled toward the sail he saw in the offing.

“Captain Brand,” replied the doctor, “I was deceived in coming here, as you well know; but I shall religiously keep my oath for the twenty years, as I swore to do. After that, if we both live so long, my tongue and arm shall speak and strike.”

“And I, too, keep my oaths; and, without waiting twenty years, I strike now!”

Even while the treacherous villain spoke, two swarthy, sinewy scoundrels crept stealthily from within the chapel, and, with the soft, slimy movements of serpents, as their leader uttered the last word, they sprang at the back of the doctor, and wound their coils around him, twining strong strands of raw-hide rope about his arms, legs, and body. Bound as in a frame of elastic steel, their victim was thrown, face downward, upon the sand.

“Be quick, Pedillo! the time is flying! Gomez, bring the corpse trestle from the chapel.”

In a moment a wooden frame with legs, and stretched across with a bed of light wire, which had been used to carry the mortal remains of the pirates––and the poor women, too, beside them––to their last resting-places, was brought out from the little church. Then the bound victim was laid on it, face upward; again the hide thongs were passed in numerous plaits until the body was lashed firmly to the trestle.

“Place it on the edge of that rock there, with his head toward the cocoa-nut-tree. Take this silk rope, Gomez, and clove-hitch it well up the trunk. There, that will do. I myself will perform the last act of politeness.”

Saying this, the pirate widened the noose of the cord, and, slipping it over the doctor’s head, he placed the knot carefully under his left ear. The victim gave no groan or sigh, and his dark, luminous eyes were fixed on the blue sky above him in heaven.

“Monsieur le Docteur,” said Captain Brand, as he hurriedly looked at his watch and raised his hat, “I have but one word of caution to give you: if you struggle you will have your neck broken before you are stung to death! Talk as much as you like; but, as Babette is a long way off, and hard of hearing, I doubt if she comes to your assistance! Adieu!”

As the powder vomited forth its dreadful thunder, and as the stones and timbers from the blasted den were hurled high in air, and scattered by the explosive whirlwind far and near, some of the splinters and fragments came down in dropping hail upon the red-tiled sheds and the doctor’s dwelling. At the first shock the lonely child started up in his little bed, and while the earth rocked and the stones came pelting and crashing on the roof, he screamed, “Mamma! mamma!” No loving echo came back to those innocent lips, and naught was heard save the crackling of the flame beyond, licking its tongue along the dry timber and roaring joyously as it was fed. “Mamma! chère mamma!”

Yet no answer, and still the savage flames came careering wildly on till the very stones of the court-yard cracked like slates, while the burning flakes and cinders loaded the air, and the eddying volumes of smoke reeled in dense clouds, and poured their suffocating breath into the room where the forsaken child was crying.

One more panting, helpless cry, and the little fellow instinctively flew through the open doorway, where, blinded and choking with the devastating element around him, he staggered feebly beyond its influence. Yet again a flurry of thick smoke lighted up the forked and vivid flames, and chased the child before it.

Then came the close and sultry night––no murmur of a land-wind to drive the smoky canopy away––the black cinders falling in burning rain on basin, thicket, and lagoon, till even the very lizards and scorpions hid themselves deep within the holes and crevices of the rocks. Midnight came. The dim and silent stars were obscured by a veil of heavy clouds, and with a low, muttering sound of thunder, the vapory masses unclosed their portals, and the rain fell in torrents. The flames, now nearly satisfied with their work, leaped out occasionally from the fallen ruins, but were quenched by the tropical deluge, and smouldered away amid the charred and saturated timbers. Then the thunder ceased, the lizards and scorpions came from their retreats, the teal fluttered over the lagoon, and the noise of the waves bursting over the reef came again to the ear. Still there was no breath of air; the atmosphere was thick and damp; and out from the mangrove thickets and wide expanse of cactus, swarms of insects, musquitoes, and sand-flies in myriads went buzzing and singing in the sultry, murky night.

So dragged on the weary hours until day broke again, and the sea-birds floated off seaward for their morning’s meal, and the flying-fish skipped with their silvery wings from wave to wave, as the dolphins glittered in gold and purple after them below the blue water. No bright and blazing sun came over the hills of Cuba to light up this picture, but all was blight and gloom, with murky masses of dead, still clouds hanging low down over the island.

The little suffering boy, lying there on the coral pavement, with his head resting on the thin, delicate arm, with pale, sweet face turned half upward toward the Virgin, gave a feeble cry and opened his eyes. He rose to a sitting posture, with his little hands resting on his lap and little ragged shirt. Then, with his dim hazel eyes fixed upon the painting, while the tears coursed slowly down his pallid cheeks, he put forth his hands in a childish movement of supplication, and murmured again his tearful prayer, “Mamma! mamma!”

Presently rising, he turned his feeble footsteps toward the doorway, and as his eye caught the stone bowl of holy water standing on its coral pedestal near the portal, he bent down his feverish head and slaked his parched lips. Revived by this, he timidly looked out from the chapel, and shuddering as he beheld the gloomy wilderness around, he once more screamed in a thin piercing cry, “Mamma! oh, ma chère mamma!”

That was the last sad wail for help for many and many a long year that those infant lips were destined to utter; and when he again called upon that dear name, his manly arms would clasp a joyful mother to his swelling heart.

“Henri!” came back like an echo in a clear shout to the shriek of the boy. “Henri! Henri!” was reiterated again and again, each time in a voice that seemed to split asunder the canopy of clouds above.

The boy started and listened.

“Henri! Henri! this way to your good friend the doctor! Quick, my little boy!”

Now with the step of a fawn the child ran out upon the sharp sandy esplanade, and following the voice as he tripped lightly through the narrow pathway between the needle-pointed cactus, in a moment he stopped, with a look of horror, beside the trestle on which the bound and nearly naked man was stretched.

Ay, it was a sight to make a strong and stalwart man turn pale with sickness and horror, much less a baby-boy of three or four years old. There lay the man, all through the dreadful night, with swarms on swarms and myriads upon myriads of stinging insects, biting and sipping, and sucking his life-blood with distracting agony away. Ah! think of the hellish torture often practiced by those bloody pirates upon their victims in the West Indies! The bound man’s eyes were closed, the lips and cheeks puffed and swollen out of all human proportions, and the inflamed body was one glowing red and angry surface. No needle could have been stuck where the venomous stings of a thousand sand-flies or musquitoes had not already sucked blood. Ay, well might the child start back with horror!

“It is your friend the doctor, Henri,” he said in French, still in a strong but kindly voice. “I can not see you, but get me a knife. No, my child, never mind––you can not find one; don’t leave me.”

Here the child timidly put his little hands out and brushed away the poisonous insects, and then touched the doctor’s face.

“Ah! Henri, see if you can not slip that pretty silk rope over my head; yes, that is the way––doucement––easily, my child! Well, now, my Henri, you are weak and sick, my poor little boy; but listen to me––yes, I feel your little hands on my eyes. Well, bite upon that cord that goes across my throat. Bite till it snaps asunder! I am nearly choking, little one; but don’t cry.”

True, the strips of raw-hide, which had partially slackened in the rain that had washed the body of the victim, now began to tauten again in the sultry heat of the morning, and lay half hidden in the swollen throat, stomach, and limbs of the tortured sufferer.

Henri’s sharp little teeth fastened upon the strand, biting and gnawing, until finally it was severed, and the doctor gave a great sigh of relief.

“Blessings on you, my poor boy!” he murmured, painfully. “Now bite away on the strands which bind the arm. There! Don’t! don’t hurry! Rest a little, my child! Ah! it is well!”

Again those sharp little teeth of a mouse had gnawed through the net which bound the lion-hearted man; the ends of the raw-hide drew back and twisted into spiral curls, and the right arm, though numbed and four times its original size, was free.

“Thanks be to God for all His mercies!” exclaimed the doctor, as with difficulty he raised his released arm to his face and pushed back the swollen lids from his closed eyes––“and to you, my little friend, for saving this wretched life!”

Waiting a few moments to recover his strength, the doctor made a mighty effort, and some of the coils whose strands had been cut by those little teeth yielded and gradually unrove, so as to leave the upper part of his body free. Then, while the child was once more cutting the lashings of his feet, he himself unfastened the knots of his left arm, and by a vigorous effort he tore the net from off him and sat upright. Clasping his numbed and swollen hands together, he turned his face and almost sightless eyes to heaven.

“May this awful trial serve as a partial forgiveness of my sins, and make me a better man!”

He paused, and laid his heavy arms around the child, while warm and grateful tears trickled down his cheeks. Slowly, and like a drunken man, his feet sought the sand, and then, weak, trembling, and faint, he staggered along the path, the boy tripping lightly before him, till he fell exhausted on the floor of the chapel.

“Water, my Henri! water!”

The child scooped it out from the stone bowl with his tiny hands and sprinkled it on his friend’s face.

“There, that will suffice, my brave boy! Lay your cheek to mine!”

What a sight it was––that dark, swollen, yet powerful frame lying on the coral pavement, and the innocent child, like a dewdrop on the leaf of a red tropical flower, nestling close beside it!