“Him’s not drownin’ yet,” answered the matter-of-fact native.  “Me ’vise you to let Jakolu go.  Hims can sweem berer dan you.  See, here am bit plank, too,—­me take dat.”

“Ha! that’s well thought of,” cried Henry, who was now ready to plunge; “fetch it me, quick; and mind, Jakolu, keep your eye on me; when I hold up both hands you’ll know that I’m dead beat, and that you must come off and help us both.”

So saying, he seized the small piece of driftwood which the native brought to him, and, plunging into the sea, struck out vigorously in the direction in which the pastor was still perseveringly, though slowly, swimming.

While Henry was stripping, his eye had quickly and intelligently taken in the facts that were presented to him on the bay.  He had seen, on descending the hill, that the man-of-war had entered the bay and anchored there, a fact which surprised him greatly, and that the Foam still lay where he had seen her cast anchor on the morning of her arrival.  This surprised him more for, if the latter was really a pirate schooner (as had been hinted more than once that day by various members of the settlement), why did she remain so fearlessly and peacefully within range of the guns of so dangerous and powerful an enemy?  He also observed that one of the large boats of the Talisman was in the water alongside, and full of armed men, as if about to put off on some warlike expedition, while his pocket telescope enabled him to perceive that Gascoyne, who must needs be the pirate captain, if the suspicions of his friends were correct, was smoking quietly on the quarter-deck, apparently holding amicable converse with the British commander.  The youth knew not what to think; for it was preposterous to suppose that a pirate captain could by any possibility be the intimate friend of his own mother.

These and many other conflicting thoughts kept rushing through his mind as he hastened forward; but the conclusions to which they led him—­if, indeed, they led him to any—­were altogether upset by the unaccountable and extremely piratical conduct of the seamen who carried off Alice and her companions, and whom he knew to be part of the crew of the Foam, both from their costume and from the direction in which they rowed their little boat.

The young man’s perplexities were, however, neutralized for the time by his anxiety for his friend the pastor, and by the necessity of instant and vigorous effort for his rescue.  He had just time, before plunging into the sea, to note with satisfaction that the man-of-war’s boat had pushed off, and that if Alice really was in the hands of pirates, there was the certainty of her being speedily rescued.

In this latter supposition, however, Henry was mistaken.

The events on shore which we have just described had been witnessed, of course, by the crews of both vessels with, as may be easily conjectured, very different feelings.