On the outer side of that rushing fall was a scene very different indeed. The pirates and their captives stood under a blazing sun, looking across a wide and beautiful landscape. Behind them, in the side of a high hill overgrown with bushes, was the hole by which they had come forth, and across the inside of this hole was the curtain of falling water. Freddie wondered how anyone had ever had the courage to plunge for the first time through that curtain into the unknown dark. The heat of the sun was very grateful, and the clothing of the soaked travellers began to dry perceptibly at once. The pirates took off their rubber suits. Beneath the observers the ground sloped down into a broad valley, chequered with grass meadows and dotted with trees. To their left, as they gazed out across the landscape, the ground rose from the valley by easy stages to a great height, no doubt forming the landward side of the black cliff which bordered the ocean. To the right, the country rolled gently away from the valley in a vast unbroken forest, a shimmering green ocean of tree-tops as far as the eye could see. Far, far off where the forest rose in a kind of mound, Freddie thought he could see what looked like the top of a round tower, just emerging above the haze of trees. The pirates and their captives were standing on a little grassy plateau, on which were great boulders here and there, and a few wide leafy trees. Two or three fallen logs were lying near the edge of the plateau, where it began to slope downward. Captain Lingo stepped out of his rubber suit, spread out his fine white handkerchief on a boulder to dry, and twiddled his moist fingers daintily in the air, after which he blew on his finger-nails and polished them on his shirt-sleeves. "We are now ready," said he, "for the ceremony. Ketch, thy cutlass." Ketch drew his cutlass from his belt and handed it to the captain. It glittered wickedly in the sunlight. The captain ran his thumb along its edge, and nodded his head with satisfaction. "It will do," said he. "One stroke for each will be quite sufficient. We will now proceed with the ceremony." He restored the cutlass to the Practitioner, who raised it high and gave a swinging slash downward with it, as if to test his eye and arm. The Practitioner then rolled his right shirt-sleeve up to his shoulder; he was the largest man in the party, and his arm was the arm of a blacksmith. "Stop!" cried Mr. Punch. "One moment! Captain Lingo! You are a Henglishman, aren't you?" "I am an Englishman," said the Captain, swelling out his chest. "Long live King James!" "Hi am a Henglishman also," said Mr. Punch, swelling out _his_ chest. "You carn't murder a fellow-countryman in cold blood, now can you? Hi s'y, you couldn't do that, you know. We're both subjects of her gracious Majesty, we are. Long live Queen Victoria!" "Who?" said Captain Lingo. "Queen Victoria!" cried Mr. Punch. "She'd never, never forgive you hif----"