Humphrey strode up, for Mrs Greenheys had run to him with clasped hands. "I'd take it kindly of ye, sor, if ye'd explain me position to these gintlemen--that I'm not an inimy, but a friend." "Yes," said Humphrey, turning to the officer in command; "a very good friend to me, sir, and one who would be glad to serve the king." "Or anny wan else who behave dacently to him." "Let him tend his companion," said Humphrey. "He is a good nurse for a wounded man." Mistress Greenheys caught Humphrey's hand and kissed it. "But she would have betrayed us," he said to himself, as he looked down into the little woman's tearful face; "still, it was for the sake of the man she loved." That night, covered with the English flag, which she had so often defied, the so-called Commodore Junk was borne to the resting-place selected by Humphrey Armstrong. It was a solemn scene as the roughly-made bier was borne by lantern-light through the dark arcade of the forest, and the sailors looked up wonderingly at the strange aspect of the mouldering old pile. But their wonder increased as they entered the gloomy temple, and the yellow light of their lanterns fell upon the flag-draped coffin in the centre, and the weird-looking figures seated round. Side by side with the remains of her brother, Mary Dell was laid and then draped with the same flag, spread by Humphrey Armstrong's hands, the picture exciting the wonder of the officer in command, to whom it all seemed mysterious and strange. Greater wonder than all, though, was that Humphrey Armstrong, lately a prisoner of the famous buccaneer who had been laid to rest, should display such deep emotion as he slowly left the spot. As he stepped outside volleys were fired by the men, and as the reports of the pieces rumbled through the antique building, and echoed in the cavernous cenote, the reverberation loosened some portion of the roof over the vast reservoir; an avalanche of stone falling with a reverberating hollow splash, and a great bird flew out and disappeared in the darkness overhead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Three days later, laden with the valuable plunder amassed by the buccaneers, and a vast amount consigned to the flames in pursuance of the orders to thoroughly destroy the hornets'-nest, the rescue ship set sail, in company with the buccaneer's fast schooner, the prize Humphrey Armstrong once longed to take into Dartmouth Harbour. But the sight of the warship's consort only gave him pain now as he lay in his berth or reclined helplessly on deck, suffering from the serious fever which supervened. "It's a curious whim," said the captain of the ship to his lieutenant. "One would have thought he'd rather have had a couple of decent sailors to tend him, and not those two fellows, who must have been regular pirates in their time."