"But this talking isn't getting our supper ready. Where has that Indian she-devil taken herself off again?"
The person here so coarsely alluded to, now made her appearance again, bearing a basket containing a number of bottles, decanters and drinking glasses.
She was not, to be sure, so very beautiful, but by no means so ugly as to deserve the epithet applied to her by Captain Flint.
She was an Indian woman, apparently thirty, or thirty-five years of age, of good figure and sprightly in her movements, which circumstance had probable gained for her among her own people, the name of Lightfoot.
She had once saved Captain Flint's life when a prisoner among the Indians, and fearing to return to her people, she had fled with him.
It was while flying in company with this Indian woman, that Captain Flint had accidently discovered this cave. And here the fugitives had concealed themselves for several days, until the danger which then threatened them had passed.
It was on this occasion that it occurred to the captain, what a place of rendezvous this cave would be for himself and his gang; what a place of shelter in case of danger; what a fine storehouse for the plunder obtained in his piratical expeditions!
He immediately set about fixing it up for the purpose; and as it would be necessary to have some one to take charge of things in his absence, he thought of none whom he could more safely trust with the service, than the Indian woman who had shared his flight.
From that time, the cave became a den of pirates, as it had probably at one time been a den of wild beasts.
Which was the better condition, we leave it for the reader to decide.