superbly natural beauties of the island glen. Therefore with thoughts
concentrated upon their immediate personal prospects and fruitless
conjectures as to the complexion of their coming fate, the fair captives
mechanically followed the footsteps of their guides, who when they had
reached the bottom of the hill, suddenly stopped before the open door of
a long building which had been ingeniously constructed of bamboo and
other light materials well suited for the covering of a cool place of
shelter, under the heat of a tropical sun. There was nothing farther,
worthy of remark about its exterior appearance, with the exception of
its being so thickly covered on all sides by the luxuriant and evergreen
foliage of the surrounding trees, as to preclude it from being seen from
the tops of the adjacent hills, but its interior contained four large
apartments, two of which had been fitted up in a manner luxurious, and
even elegant.

Into one of these two rooms, whose walls were decorated and hung round
with the richest crimson drapery, and which was as richly furnished in
every other respect, did the strange guides usher their fair prisoners,
after which, they instantly retired, leaving our heroine and her
companion to consult together as they might see fit upon their singular
and mysterious situation.

'Do we dream dear Mary,' exclaimed Ellen, us she gazed wildly around
this strange apartment, 'or are we laboring under the influence of some
fairy spell of necromantic enchantment?'

'Would to Heaven, that it was so,' exclaimed Mary, in reply, 'but alas,
it is not. For the present at least, dear Ellen, we are in the power of
ferocious pirates, from whom, I hope we shall soon be released.'