While this scene was enacting, a similar one was taking place on board the _Dove_. Her captors, having time to look about them, had taken up the bodies of poor Captain Stone and the other Kanaka, and, without shroud or a shot to their feet, had hove them overboard. They also were immediately attacked by the sharks. Jerry and I shuddered, as well we might. The doctor looked on with more composure. "It matters little whether sharks or animalculae first devour a body," he observed. "One or other will inevitably swallow it before long, only the sharks make greater speed with the process. Happily there is an essence which neither one nor the other can destroy, which survives triumphant over death; so, lads, when you mourn the loss of a friend, think of him as living in that essence, not in the mortal frame you see torn to pieces or mouldering in decay." A new light seemed to burst on me as the doctor said this. The idea aided me to get over the horror I had felt at seeing the fate of the missionary captain, and enabled me better to bear the first remark which the pirate leader deigned to make us: "Well, youngsters, if you don't behave yourselves, you'll come to that very quickly, let me tell you." "We have no wish to do otherwise than behave ourselves, sir," answered Jerry in his politest way. "Perhaps you will tell us what you wish to have done?" "To hold your tongue and be hanged," answered the ruffian, turning aside; for Jerry's coolness puzzled and enraged him. The doctor was now summoned down below to look after some sick men, the mate, who called him, said; but, as Jerry whispered, he suspected they were sick from having swallowed more bullets than they liked. We two, in the meantime, sat ourselves down on a gun, with Surley at our feet. He put his nose between us, and looked anxiously up into our faces, as if to learn what it all meant. We were there allowed to remain unmolested, while the pirates went past us attending to the duty of the ship. On seeing the guns, we wondered that the schooner had not fired at us; but we concluded that they had coveted the _Dove_ for their own objects, and had not wished to injure her. It was evidently from no compassion to us that they had not knocked her to pieces. No one interrupting us, Jerry and I began quietly to talk to each other. "What can have become of Mr Brand, and Ben Yool, and the Kanaka?" said I. "Is it possible that they are aboard here all this time, do you think?" "I am afraid not," answered Jerry, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I think it's much more likely that a shot was hove into the dinghy if they went alongside, and that they were sent to the bottom. My only hope is, that they missed their way and never came near this craft. If so, they may have been picked up by some vessel, or may find their way back to Owhyhee." "That last idea never occurred to me before. Oh, I hope it may be so! I wonder what the doctor thinks?" said I.