generally used by the bucaniers as a place of storage for their ill
gotten plunder. This cavern had had many, and various ways of entrance,
the principal one of which, was near the outside of the palace, and was
opened by removing a broad, flat stone, which had been ingeniously set
upright in a small banking, apparently of earth, which surrounded this
singular abode.

We might as well say here, as anywhere, that we are well aware that the
representation given by us of the pirate's palace and cavern, will be
looked upon by many as unnatural and improbable, but when they consider
that the bucaniers of that period were very numerous, and consisted of
men of almost every variety of genius, which must, even in its times of
relaxation, be employed about something, they will cease, perhaps, to
wonder that the ingenuity of such men should be exerted in building
convenient, and even elegant structures for their accommodation, and
their extensive means of enriching them with ornaments the most costly,
with which the numerous Indiamen they captured were freighted, will not
be farther questioned.

But to return to our story.

Finding himself surrounded by four or five armed and desperate men,
Huntington, concluding that resistance would be in vain, signified his
readiness to follow them, whereupon he was led by two of their number to
the cavern above alluded to, whilst the remaining pirates bestowed their
attention upon poor Patrick O'Leary, whom, (as he had not yet recovered
his powers of locomotion,) they lifted upon their shoulders and bore him
away after his master, much in the same manner as they would have
carried a slaughtered beast.