The schooner having a crew put on board her, the two vessels stood away to the westward. Peter told me that he suspected we were bound to one of the numerous small islands--keys they are called--which are found in great numbers off the south coast of Cuba. We were allowed to walk about the deck without molestation; but our position was far from a pleasant one, for any moment our captors might take it into their heads to make us walk the plank, or to get rid of us by some other means. I had never seen a person made to walk the plank, but I had heard it described as a favourite method employed by pirates to get rid of their prisoners. A long plank is run out over the side, and the victim, blindfolded, is made to walk along it. When he gets to the outer end, the inner part is tilted up, and he is slid into the sea. I earnestly prayed that such might not be our fate, and yet I could not see what better we could expect. We had evidently fallen into the hands of desperate outlaws, not likely to be influenced by any of the dictates of humanity. At all events, we were likely to be kept prisoners, and probably made to work as slaves for these villains, without a chance of escaping. The captain seemed most cast down. He would, of course, most certainly be thought to be lost. His vessel would sail without him, and report his death at home. As he was a married man, with several children, the trial was indeed great to him. I tried to make out who was the captain of the pirates, but they appeared at first to me to be all equal. A fat, sturdy mulatto, was, I after a time suspected, the chief mate, or one of the principal officers; and the Spaniard, who had first succeeded in boarding us, was another. Not one of them spoke a word of English, though from the first I suspected that two or more of the white men understood it, if they were not Englishmen or people from the American colonies. At all events, I followed Peter's advice--not to say anything about which it might be well not to have heard. I have often seen people get into great scrapes, and bring most disagreeable consequences on themselves, from disregarding that rule. Never say anything among foreigners, in your own or any other language, which you do not wish them to understand; or even give expression to your feelings in looks, which even savages, you should remember, can frequently comprehend.