"He's safe, Mr Frank--at least I hope so. Look here. You remember them foreign chaps as he brought aboard at Porto Prayo? It was all a lie they told the cap'en, about their ship having been lost. They were part of a crew of pirates--that's my belief, any way--as had heard Captain Wilmore was short-handed, and wanted to get possession of his ship. They was no sooner aboard than they made friends with some of the worst of our hands--Andy and White and O'Hara and the rest on 'em--and I make no doubt persuaded them to join 'em. About ten o'clock last night, when the men were nearly all in their berths, worn out with their work during the gale, these foreigners crept up on deck, cut down and pitched overboard half a dozen of our chaps as were on deck, and then clapped down the hatches." "That was what we heard, then," remarked Gilbert. "Were you on deck, Tom?" "Yes, sir, I was, and got these two cuts over the head and leg. By good luck I fell close to the companion-ladder and was able at once to crawl to my berth, or I should have been pitched overboard. Well, as soon as it was daylight, the captain and the officers laid their heads together to contrive some means of regaining the ship; but, before they could settle anything, a vessel came in sight, and the fellows on deck hove to and let her come up--" "The pirate ship, I suppose, hey?" cried Frank. "Yes, sir, no other. She'd followed us beyond a doubt from Porto Prayo, and would have come up before, if it hadn't been for the gale. There wasn't nothing to be done, of course. The pirates threatened the captain, if he didn't surrender at once, that they'd fire down the hatchways and afterwards pitch every mother's son overboard. And they'd have done it too." "Not a doubt," assented Frank. "So my uncle surrendered?" "Yes, sir, he did, but he didn't like it. I must say, from what I've heard of these fellows, I judged that they'd have thrown us all in to the sea without mercy. But it seems White and O'Hara and the rest wouldn't allow that, and insisted on it that every one, who chose it, should be allowed to leave the ship. I did 'em injustice, I must say." "What did they go in?" inquired Wilmore, a good deal surprised. "In the two biggest of the ship's boats, sir. You see we've been driven a long way south by that gale, and are not more than a few hundred miles from Ascension. They'll make for that, and with this wind they've a good chance of getting there in three or four days." "Are all the officers and passengers gone?" asked Warley. "Well, no, sir. Mr Lavie ain't gone. The men stopped him as he was stepping into the boat, and declared he shouldn't leave the ship. But all the rest is gone--no one's left except those who've joined the mutineers, unless it's poor old Lion, who's still tied up in the fo'castle." "Why, _you_ haven't joined them, Jennings, to be sure?"