We might as well say here, as anywhere, that we are well aware that the representation given by us of the pirate’s palace and cavern, will be looked upon by many as unnatural and improbable, but when they consider that the bucaniers of that period were very numerous, and consisted of men of almost every variety of genius, which must, even in its times of relaxation, be employed about something, they will cease, perhaps, to wonder that the ingenuity of such men should be exerted in building convenient, and even elegant structures for their accommodation, and their extensive means of enriching them with ornaments the most costly, with which the numerous Indiamen they captured were freighted, will not be farther questioned.

But to return to our story.

Finding himself surrounded by four or five armed and desperate men, Huntington, concluding that resistance would be in vain, signified his readiness to follow them, whereupon he was led by two of their number to the cavern above alluded to, whilst the remaining pirates bestowed their attention upon poor Patrick O’Leary, whom, (as he had not yet recovered his powers of locomotion,) they lifted upon their shoulders and bore him away after his master, much in the same manner as they would have carried a slaughtered beast.

Having arrived with their prisoners at the place assigned for their confinement, the pirates conversed amongst themselves, as follows: 

‘I say, Poplin,’ exclaimed one who seemed to be a kind of petty officer, ’what do you suppose our captain intends to do with these two bear cubs that we have here?’

‘I cannot say, Mr. Pepper,’ replied the person to whom that worthy had spoken, ’what he will do with that red-headed son of a mushroom, that lays rolled up there yonder, like a bundle of half dead lobsters, but as for the other one, he, you know, killed Pedro, and I heard the captain say that he would be hanged.’

‘Then of course he will be, so that settles that affair,’ replied Mr. Pepper, very coolly.  ’But what do you suppose, Poplin, he is going to do with that fine lady, that he’s got up overhead there?’

‘Which one do you mean?  He’s got two of them,’ said Poplin.

‘Ah, yes, so he has, I recollect now.  I mean both,’ said Pepper.

‘I cannot tell only about the youngest one,’ replied Poplin, ’whom the captain is going to take on board the brig.’

‘What, has the pretty little craft arrived?’ asked Pepper.

‘She has,’ rejoined the other.

‘Then its all over with the Indiaman.’

‘Of course it is,’ replied Poplin, significantly.

‘But the Indiaman you know,’ suggested Pepper, ’carried double the number of guns that the brig does.’

‘She carries a Captain Rowland also,’ said Poplin, drily.

‘Ah, I understand it all now,’ said Pepper, ’so let us confine the prisoners, and then go up and see the fun.’

So saying, a few moments afterwards, Pepper and his companions departed, leaving Henry Huntington and Pat to their own reflections.