"And what of the pirate ship?" asked Parkington. "If Long-Sword is a prize, it should be a veritable treasure house."
"I purposely refrained from examining her," Jamison answered. "I left that for Mr. Marbury."
"I will come down, presently," said Marbury. "Meanwhile, you may proceed with making an inventory of the booty aboard."
Jamison saluted and departed. The party finished the meal, and went out on the lawn. The dead had been taken away for burial, and the evidences of the late struggle were being removed.
"I hope the house party is not ended," said George Marbury. "The ladies can come back, and, I am sure, feel perfectly safe."
"I fancy that is for the ladies to decide," said Snowden:—"though I am quite willing for Mrs. Snowden to return. We, at least, have seen the last of the pirates, I imagine."
The other men had the same opinion, though Herford thought that he would much prefer to have killed all the pirates, and not had a bunch running loose in the vicinity.
"There is no danger to us," said Plater. "They will get out of the neighborhood about as fast as they can. They may do some marauding, on the march, but it will not be twice in the same place—and it will not be anything that will require time. They are in too great a hurry. I will wager, that they have already separated in twos and threes, to foregather at an appointed place—York or thereabouts. I too am quite willing for Mrs. Plater to return."
And so it was, that he and Snowden and Constable were designated to go to Rose Hill and bring the ladies back—it being understood that nothing be said to them of the pirates' second attack.