are, on the contrary, Don Pedro Vasquez da Silva, commanding the
Esmeralda galleasse, bound out of Santa Crux. In us you behold
Scarlet Sam and Timothy Bone, of the good ship Black Death, with the
'skull and cross-bones' fluttering at our peak. If you don't see
it, that is not our fault."

Mr. Selwyn stared at me in wide-eyed astonishment, then shrugging
his shoulders, turned his back upon me and paddled away as best he
might. "Well, Imp," I said, "you've done it this time!"

"'Fraid I have," he returned; "but oh! wasn't it grand - and all
that about Don Pedro an' the treasure galleon! I do wish I knew
as much as you do, Uncle Dick. I'd be a real pirate then."

"Heaven forfend!" I exclaimed. So I presently turned and rowed
back upstream, not a little perturbed in my mind as to the outcome
of the adventure.

"Not a word, mind!" I cautioned as I caught sight of a certain
dainty figure watching our approach from the shade of her parasol.
The Imp nodded, sighed, and sheathed his cutlass.

"Well!" said Lisbeth as we glided up to the water-stairs; "I wonder
what mischief you have been after together?"

"We have been floating upon a river of dreams," I answered, rising
and lifting my hat; "we have likewise discoursed of many things.
In the words of the immortal Carroll:

"'Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and cabbages, and - '"