attached to the bough, I first twined my legs round the former, and then grasping it, slid easily down, until my feet touched the cross-trees of the Spanish schooner, and in a moment my comrades were clustering around me, no alarm being as yet excited. After pausing a moment, to get firm grips of the stays, I gave the word, and the whole four slid like lightning down the ropes, hand over hand, as sailors say, and came with a great bounce upon deck together. Le Picard instantly leaped to the cook-house, and the Spaniard coming out at the same moment, the Frenchman dealt him a blow with the butt-end of a heavy pistol, which flung him backwards, quite stunned upon the deck, while Nicky and I ran to the cabin, meeting at the threshold, the boy, and a comely woman, very dark, and with the blackest eyes I ever saw, who directly set up a great shriek of dismay. But Nicky and I, pointing to the cabin and drawing forth pistols, made them understand that they must go below and be silent, as they valued their lives. The boy slunk back directly, and the woman turned to a livid paleness, and, swooning away, would have fallen down the ladder, but we supported her and laid her on the cabin floor; then, directly running on deck, we shut down the hatch. All this hardly occupied a moment; and, seeing Le Picard and Blue Peter cutting the warps forward, we drew our knives, and, working with good will, soon severed the tough piles of hemp, aft, and the schooner was unmoored. We waited a moment with great impatience, to see if she would drift, but, remaining stationary, we ran up the jib, and slackened the brails of the mainsail, so as, without actually setting the sail, to expose a good breadth of canvas, but it hung idly; the sea breeze had not yet set in, or if it had it did not reach us in the depths of the creek. We therefore flung a long line into the lightest of the two boats alongside, and Blue Peter and Nicky leaping into it, pulled with all their strength for the elbow at which the creek tended seawards, and made the line fast to a tree there, while Le Picard and I hauled upon the warp, and soon saw that the schooner was obeying the impulse thus given to her, and slowly moving through the water. In a twinkling, our comrades leaped on board again, and added their strength to ours, all of us working with clenched teeth and breathless eagerness. Just then, turning to look at the wounded Spaniard, who was sprawling upon the deck, I felt a breath of cool air on my face, the jib-sheet rattled, the light canvas swelled out, and in a moment the mainsail moved out of its sleepy folds, and the warp upon which we were hauling slackened. The schooner felt the puff, and I ran aft and took the helm, steering her in close by the starboard shore, which, when we turned seawards, would be the weather side of the cove. The mingled trees and rocks seemed to glide away from us. I looked over the side, and saw the bubbles