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By Root 3284 0

told, tho' I have lived long and seen all kinds of men, I think he is mad: indeed I am sure of it; and I take Oath that he shall be brought to at least that tithe of justice which is in Human hands, for two days we drifted about in a helpless condition, for our rigging had all been cut, and at last fell in with an American man-of-war, who gave us some assistance, and would have proceeded in pursuit of the miscreants himself had he not most explicit orders to elsewhere. I then put in to the port of Havana, where I informed the correspondent of Lloyds, the government, and the representative of the _Times_ newspaper, and take the opportunity of writing you this melancholy letter before proceeding to England.

There is one point on which you will still feel some anxiety, considering the sex of some of the poor innocents, and on which I am glad to be able to set your minds at rest, the children were taken onto the other vessel in the evening and I am glad to say there done to death _immediately_, and their little bodies cast into the sea, as I saw with great relief with my own eyes. There was no time for what you might fear to have occurred, and this consolation I am glad to be able to give you.--I have the honor to be,

Your obedient servant,

JAS. MARPOLE,

Master, barque _Clorinda_.

3

THE PASSAGE FROM Montego Bay to the Caymans, where the children had written their letters, is only a matter of a few hours: indeed, in clear weather one can look right across from Jamaica to the peak of Tarquinio in Cuba.

There is no harbor; and the anchorage, owing to the reefs and ledges, is difficult. The _Clorinda_ brought up off the Grand Cayman, the look-out man in the chains feeling his way to a white, sandy patch of bottom which affords the only safe resting-place there, and causing the anchor to be let go to windward of it. Luckily, the weather was fine.

The island, a longish one at the western end of the group, is low, and covered with palms. Presently a succession of boats brought out a quantity of turtles, as Emily described. The natives also brought parrots to sell to the sailors: but failed to dispose of many.

At last, however, the uncomfortable Caymans were left behind, and they set their course towards the Isle of Pines, a large island in a gulf of the Cuban coast. One of the sailors, called Curtis, had once been wrecked there, and was full of stories about it. It is a very unpleasant place; sparsely inhabited, and covered with labyrinthine woods. The only food available is a kind of tree. There is also a species of bean which looks tempting: but it is deadly poison. The crocodiles, Curtis said, were so fierce they chased him and his companions into trees: the only way to escape from them was to throw them your cap to worry: or if you were bold, to disable them with a blow of a stick on the loins. There were also a great many snakes, including a kind of boa.

The current off the Isle of Pines sets strongly to the east: so the _Clorinda_ kept close inshore, to cheat it. They passed Cape Corrientes--looking, when first sighted, like two hummocks in the sea: they passed Holandes Point, known as False C. Antonio: but were prevented for some time, as Captain Marpole told in his letter, from rounding the true one. For to attempt C. Antonio in a Norther is to waste your labor.

They lay-to in sight of that long, low, rocky, treeless promontory in which the great island of Cuba terminates, and waited. They were so close that the fisherman's hut on its southern side was clearly discernible.

For the children, those first few days at sea had flashed by like a kind of prolonged circus. There is no machine invented for sober purposes so well adapted also to play as the rigging of a ship: and the kindly captain, as Mrs. Thornton had divined, was willing to give them a lot of freedom. First came the climbing of a few rungs of the ratlines in a sailor's charge: higher each time, till John attained a gingerly touching of the yard: then hugged it: then straddled it. Soon, running up the ratlines and prancing on the yard (as if it were a mere