"You are still of that mind?" he asked, as though we had discussed the
matter but five minutes before.

"Yes."

"Then your time is up;" and at a word from him the men bound my hands and
feet as before, tied a cloth over my eyes, and carried me off along the
rocky way--to my death I doubted not.

To the schooner first in any case, though why they could not kill a man on
shore as easily as at sea surprised me. Though, to be sure, a man's body is
more easily and cleanly disposed of at sea than on shore, and leaves no
mark behind it.

I was placed in the same bunk as before, and fell asleep wondering how soon
the end of this strange business would come, but sure that it would not be
long.

I was wakened in the morning by the crash of the big guns, and surmised
that we had run across something. I heard answering guns and more
discharges of our own, then the lowering of a boat, and presently my
porthole was obscured as the schooner ground against another vessel.

Then the unexpected happened, in a furious fusillade of small arms from the
other ship. Treachery had evidently met treachery, and Death had his hands
full.

From the shouting aboard the other ship I felt sure they were Frenchmen,
and glad as I was at thought of these ruffians getting paid in their own