Three or four hours of painful anxiety succeeded, when it became evident even to the unpracticed eyes of Julia and her father, that the strange vessel was slowly but surely overhauling them. Yet the brave girl showed none of the usual weakness of her sex, and even encouraged her father, who, though himself a brave man, yet trembled as he thought of the probable fate of his daughter. As for poor John, that unfortunate individual was so completely beside himself, that he wandered from one part of the vessel to the other, asking each sailor successively what his opinion of the chances of escape might be, and what treatment they might expect from the pirates after they were taken. As may be imagined, he received little consolation from the hardy tars, who, although themselves well aware of their probable fate, yet had been too long schooled in danger to show fear before the peril was immediately around them, and were each pursuing the duties of their several stations, very much as if only threatened with the usual dangers of the voyage. The unmanly fears of John even induced them to play upon his anxiety, and magnify his terror. "Why, John," said his old friend, who had so scientifically cured him of his sea-sickness, and toward whom John evinced a kind of filial reverence, placing peculiar reliance upon every thing said by the worthy tar, "why, John, they will make us all walk the plank." "Will they--O, dear me! and what is that, does it hurt a fellow?" "O, no! he dies easy." "Dies! oh, lud!" "Why, yes! you know what walking the plank is, don't yer?" "No I don't. O, dear!" "Well, they run a plank over the side of the ship, and ask you very politely to walk out to the end of it." "O, lud! and don't they let a body hold on?" "And then when you get to the end of it, why, John, it naturally follers that it tips up, and lets you into the sea." "And don't they help you out?" "No, no, John! I aint joking now, by my honor; that's the end of a man, and that's where we shall go to if they get hold of us." "O, dear me! what did I come to sea for? Well, but s'posin you wont go out on the plank, wouldn't it do just to tell 'em you'd rather not, perlitely, you know--perliteness goes a great way." "They just blow your brains out with a pistol, that's all." "O, lud!" "Yes, John, that's the way they use folks." "The bloody villains! and have we all got to walk the plank? Oh! dear Miss Julia, and all?" "No, no, John, not her; poor girl, it would be better if she had"--and the kind-hearted tar brushed away a tear with his tawny hand. "What! don't they kill the women, then?" "No, no, John, they lets them live." A sudden light shone in the eyes of John; it was the first happy expression that had flitted across his countenance since the strange sail had been discovered, and the fearful word, pirate, had fallen upon his ears. "I have it--I have it!" "What, John?"