little arbour attracted many eyes. None of the boat's crew, however, had
anything to say about it, except that it was the captain's fancy.

The captain--with the women and children clustering round him, and the
men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening--stood telling
how the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the
light Pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their
wake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the
great Pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chase began, and
shot over to the Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing
the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into
shallows and went aground; but not without having its revenge upon the
two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overhand, and sent to
the bottom with all on board. He stood telling how the Expedition,
fearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great
exertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the Island,
where they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone. He stood
telling how my officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island,
with as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the
mainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed
and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any
tidings of us. He stood telling all this, with his face to the river;
and, as he stood telling it, the little arbour of flowers floated in the
sunshine before all the faces there.

Leaning on Captain Carton's shoulder, between him and Miss Maryon, was
Mrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm. She asked him, without
raising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother?

"Be comforted! She lies," said the Captain gently, "under the cocoa-nut