“Does he, though?  Now that’s mysterious,” said the boy, becoming suddenly grave.  “That requires to be looked to.  Come, Alice, tell me all the particulars.  Don’t omit anything—­our lives may depend on it.”

The deeply serious manner in which Corrie said this so impressed and solemnized the child, that she related, word for word, the brief conversation she had had with her father, and all that she had heard of the previous converse between him and Henry.

When she had concluded, Master Corrie threw a still more grave and profoundly philosophical expression into his chubby face, and asked, in a hollow tone of voice, “Your father didn’t say anything against the Grampus, did he?”

“The what?” inquired Alice.

“The Grampus,—­the man, at least, whom I call the Grampus, and who calls hisself Jo Bumpus.”

“I did not hear such names mentioned; but Henry spoke of a wounded nigger.”

“Aye, they’re all a set of false rascals together,” said Corrie.

“Niggers ob dis here settlement is good mans, ebery von,” said Poopy, promptly.

“Hallo!  Kickup, wot’s wrong?  I never heard you say so much at one time since I came to this place.”

“Niggers is good peepils,” reiterated the girl.

“So they are, Puppy, and you’re the best of ’em; but I was speakin’ of the fellers on the other side of the island,—­d’ye see?”

“Hee! hee!” ejaculated the girl.

“Well, but what makes you so anxious?” said Alice, looking earnestly into the boy’s face.

Corrie laid his hand on her head and stroked her fair hair as he replied: 

“This is a serious matter, Alice; I must go at once and see your father about it.”

He rose with an air of importance, as if about to leave the kitchen.

“Oh! but please don’t go till you have told me what it is; I’m so frightened,” said, Alice; “do stay and tell me about it before you go to papa.”

“Well, I don’t mind if I do,” said the boy, sitting down again.  “You must know, then, that it’s reported there are pirates on the island.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Alice.

“D’ye know what pirates are, Puppy?”

“Hee! hee!” answered the girl.

“I do believe she don’t know nothin’,” said the boy, looking at her with an air of compassion; “wot a sad thing it is to belong to a lower species of human natur!  Well, I s’pose it can’t be helped.  A pirate, Kickup, is a sea-robber.  D’ye understand?”

“Ho! ho!”

“Aye, I thought so.  Well, Alice, I am told that there’s been a lot of them landed on the island and took to chasin’ and killin’ the niggers, and Henry was all but killed by one o’ the niggers this very morning, an’ was saved by a big feller that’s a mystery to me, and by the Grampus, who is the best feller I ever met,—­a regular trump, he is; and there’s all sorts o’ doubts, and fears, and rumors, and things of that sort, with a captain of the British navy, that you and I have read so much about, trying to find this pirate out, and suspectin’ everybody he meets is him.  I only hope he won’t take it into his stupid head to mistake me for him,—­not so unlikely a thing, after all.”  And the youthful Corrie shook his head with much gravity, as he surveyed his rotund little legs complacently.