"After having doubled this point, two passages opened before us--one wide and inviting, which led eastward into the Atlantic--the other narrow, and not distinguishable from numberless other similar openings in the rocks, which led to nothing. Into the former, we threw our hats, that our pursuers might be led to suppose that our boat, injured by a random shot had foundered; through the intricacies of the latter, to me well known, we wound our way north-westward, until we had gained the sheet of water on the other side of the island, where we found Tom and the girl in my boat awaiting our approach in the deepest anxiety, their ears having been startled by the thunder of the broadside, while they knew not the result. At the sight of the lonely, desolate girl, sitting in terror, by the side of her rough-looking, but kind-hearted conductor, my heart was thrilled with compassion; and, when we drew near, I pointed, delightedly, to her father, on whom she continued to fix an eager, wistful look, until Tom, lightly lifting her up, and leaping on board of us, as we brushed by, had placed her in his arms. Tom, at my instance, came and seated himself by me in the stern, where he kept gazing for some time at the outporings of the purest of all affections--filial and parental love; and then turning to me, and speaking with deep emotion, he told me that it was by him that James Stray had been first led away; that, since his miserable end he had made frequent attempts at prayer, but that then an awful pang had always shot through his head and heart. 'If,' continued he, 'we shall be able to save that father and daughter, will that pass away?' Anxious to give the poor fellow useful and innocent advice, I told him that what he spoke of arose from conscience, which, slumbering at other times, always awoke during prayer; and there was nothing pacified the conscience like a good deed, humbly offered to God in the Redeemer's name; that, after having returned to an honest course of life, he would obtain what good people called peace of conscience; and that then his devotions would be as soft and sweet as they had ever been when a child at his mother's knee. He seemed very grateful for these words of instruction, declaring that he was ready to shed for me the last drop of his blood. Bending forward now toward the father, and addressing him for the first time, I assured him that his daughter had been restored to him unsullied, that we were ourselves in the act of escaping from the pirates, and that we would either save him or perish along with him.