"Oh! it's nothing, my dear feller," cried Swot. "And now I'm all cold and shivering," said Tidkins, seating himself on a bale of goods; "and my legs seem as if they'd break under me." The Buffer, the foreman, and Long Bob were suddenly and simultaneously inspired with the same idea; and they cast on their companion looks of mingled apprehension and horror. "No—it can't be!" ejaculated Swot. "And yet—how odd that he should turn so," said Bob, with a shudder. "The plague!" returned the Buffer, in a tone of indescribable terror. "You're a fool, Jack!" exclaimed the Resurrection Man, glaring wildly upon his comrades, and endeavouring to rise from his seat. But he fell back, exhausted and powerless. "Damnation!" he muttered in a low but ferocious tone; and he gnashed his teeth with rage. "The plague!" repeated the Buffer, now unable to contain his fears. Then he hastily clambered from the hold of the schooner. "The coward!" cried Swot: "such a prize as this is worth any risk." But as he yet spoke, Long Bob, influenced by panic fear, sprang after the Buffer, as if Death itself were at his heels, clad in all the horrors of the plague. "My God! don't leave me here," cried the Resurrection Man, his voice losing its thickness and assuming the piercing tone of despair. "Every man for himself, it seems," returned Swot, whom the panic had now robbed of all his courage; and in another moment he also had disappeared. "The cowards—the villains!" said Tidkins, clenching his fists with rage. Then, by an extraordinary and almost superhuman effort, he raised himself upon his legs: but they seemed to bend under him. He, however managed to climb upon the packages of goods; and, aided by the rope, lifted himself up to the hatchway. But the effort was too great for his failing strength: his hands could not retain a firm grasp of the cord; and he fell violently to the bottom of the hold, rolling over the bales of merchandize in his descent. "It's all over!" he mattered to himself; and then he became rapidly insensible. Meantime the Lully Prig, who was mounting sentry upon the surgeon in the after cabin, was suddenly alarmed by hearing the trampling of hasty steps over head. He rushed on deck, and demanded the cause of this abrupt movement. "The plague!" cried the Buffer, as he leapt over the ship's quarter into the boat. The Lully Prig precipitated himself after his comrade; and the other two pirates immediately followed. "But we are only four!" said the Lully Prig, as the boat was pushed away from the vessel. "Tidkins has got the plague," answered the Buffer, his teeth chattering with horror and affright. Fortunately the police-boat was at a distance; and the pirates succeeded in getting safely away from that dangerous vicinity. But the Resurrection Man remained behind in the plague-ship! ----- Footnote 1: A thief who steals damp linen off the hedges in the country. Footnote 2: Talking—palaver. "Tollibon" is the tongue. Footnote 3: