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By Root 3347 0

the captain: though these latter were always received with an uncomfortable silence. Otto was a Viennese by birth, but had stowed away in a Danube barge when he was ten years old, had taken to the sea, and thereafter generally served in English ships. The only place since his childhood where he had ever spent any considerable time on shore was Wales. For some years he had sailed coastwise from the once-promising harbor of Portdinlleyn, which is now practically dead: and so, as well as German, Spanish, and English, he could talk Welsh fluently. It was not a long residence, but at an impressionable age; and when he talked to Emily of his past it was mostly of his life as a "boy" on the slate-boats. Captain Jonsen came of a Danish family settled on the Baltic coast, at Lübeck. He too had spent most of his time on English ships. How or when he and Otto had first met, or how they had drifted into the Cuban piracy business, Emily never discovered. They had plainly been inseparable for many years. She preferred letting them ramble on, to asking questions or trying to fit things together: she had that sort of mind.

When the knots palled, José sent her a beautiful crochet-hook he had carved out of a beef bone: and by pulling threads out of a piece of sail-cloth she was able to set to work to crochet doilies for the cabin table. But I am afraid that she also drew a lot, till the whole of the inside of the bunk was soon as thoroughly scribbled over as a paleolithic cave. What the captain would say when he found out was a consideration best postponed. The fun was to find knots, and unevennesses in the paint, that looked like something; and then with a pencil to make them look more like it--putting an eye in the walrus, or supplying the rabbit with his missing ear. That is what artists call having a proper feeling for one's material.

Instead of getting better the weather got worse: and the universe soon became a very unstable place indeed: it became almost impossible to crochet. She had to cling on to the side of the bunk all the time, to prevent her leg getting banged.

It was in this inconvenient weather, however, that the pirates chose at last to make another capture. It turned out not a rich one: a small Dutch steamer, taking a consignment of performing animals to one of Mr. Barnum's predecessors. The captain of the steamer, who was conceited in a way that only certain Dutchmen can be conceited, gave them a lot of trouble, in spite of the fact that he had practically nothing worth taking. He was a first-class sailor: but he was very fair, and had no neck. In the end they had to tie him up, bring him on board the schooner, and lay him on the cabin floor where Emily could keep an eye on him. He reeked of some particularly nauseous brand of cigars that made her head swim.

The other children had played quite an important part in the capture. They _did_ far better as a badge of innocuousness than even the "ladies." The steamer (little more than dressed-up sailing-vessels they were then), thoroughly disgruntled at the weather, was wallowing about like a porpoise, her decks awash and her funnel over one ear, so to speak: so when a boat put out from the schooner, its departure cheered lustily by Edward, Harry, Rachel, and Laura, though his pride might resent it, the Dutchman never thought of suspecting this presumable offer of assistance, and let them come on board.

It was then he began to give trouble, and they had to remove him onto the schooner. Their tempers were none too good on finding their booty was a lion, a tiger, two bears, and a lot of monkeys: so it is quite likely they were none too gentle with him in transit.

The next thing was to discover whether the _Thelma_, like the _Clorinda_, carried another, a secret cargo of greater value. They had imprisoned all the crew, now, aft: so one by one they were brought up on deck and questioned. But either there was no money on board, or the crew did not know of it, or would not tell. Most of them, indeed, appeared frightened enough to have sold their grandmothers: but some of them