how she had been treated.  “Il n’y a pas de mal, mon ami,” replied Madame de Fontanges.  This was a Jesuitical sort of answer, and M. de Fontanges required further particulars.  “Elle avait temporise” with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived.  M. de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife’s explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame de Fontanges can be no concern of the reader’s.  As for Mimi and Charlotte, they made no such assertion; but, when questioned, the poor girls burst into tears, and, calling the captain and first lieutenant of the pirate vessel barbarians and every epithet they could think of, complained bitterly of the usage which they had received.

We left Newton floored (as Captain Oughton would have said) on the deck of the pirate vessel, and Isabel in a swoon on the poop of the Windsor Castle.  They were both taken up, and then taken down, and recovered according to the usual custom in romances and real life.  Isabel was the first to come to, because, I presume, a blow on the heart is not quite so serious as a blow on the head.  Fortunately for Newton, the tomahawk had only glanced along the temple, not injuring the skull, although it stunned him, and detached a very decent portion of his scalp, which had to be replaced.  A lancet brought him to his senses, and the surgeon pronounced his wound not to be dangerous, provided that he remained quiet.

At first Newton acquiesced with the medical adviser, but an hour or two afterwards a circumstance occurred which had such a resuscitating effect, that, weak as he was with the loss of blood, he would not resign the command of the ship, but gave his orders relative to the captured vessel, and the securing of the prisoners, as if nothing had occurred.  What had contributed so much to the recovery of Newton was simply this, that somehow or another Mrs Enderby left him for a few minutes, tete-a-tete with Isabel Revel:  and, during those few minutes, somehow or another, a very interesting scene occurred, which I have no time just now to describe.  It ended, however, somehow or another, in the parties plighting their troth.  As I said before, love and murder are very good friends; and a chop from a tomahawk was but a prelude for the descent of Love, with “healing on his wings.”

The Windsor Castle lost five men killed and eleven wounded in this hard contest.  Three of the Flemings were also wounded.  The pirate had suffered more severely.  Out of a crew of seventy-five men, as no quarter had been given, there remained but twenty-six, who had escaped and secreted themselves below, in the hold of the vessel.  These were put in irons under the half-deck of the Windsor Castle, to be tried upon their arrival in England.  As I may as well dispose of them at once, they were all sentenced to death by Sir William Scott, who made a very impressive speech upon the occasion; and most of them were hanged on the bank of the Thames.  The polite valet of the Marquis de Fontanges hired a wherry, and escorted Mademoiselles Mimi and Charlotte to witness the “barbares” dangling in their chains; and the sooty young ladies returned much gratified with their interesting excursion.