"But I know it's so, 'cause Dick Halyard told me all about it; now you see if you'll only let me take one of your dresses—I wont hurt it none; and then your father can take another, and we'll get clear of the bloody villains—wont it be great?"
Julia could not repress a laugh even in the midst of the melancholy thoughts which involuntarily arose in her mind during the elucidation of John's plan of escape; she could not, however, explain the difficulties in the way of its successful issue to the self-satisfied expounder, and finding no other more convenient way of closing the conversation, she told him he should have a woman's dress, with all the necessary accompaniments.
John was delighted.
"You'll tell your father, Miss Julia, wont you? O, Lud! we'll cheat the bloody fellows yet; I'll go and curl my hair."
Julia returned to her father's side, and silently watched the strange sail, which was evidently drawing nearer, as her dark hull had shown itself above the waters.
"We have but one chance of escape left," exclaimed Captain Horton; "if we can elude them during the night, all will be well; if to-morrow's sun find us in sight, we shall inevitably fall into their hands."
Night gradually settled over the deep, and when the twilight had passed, and all was dark, the lights of the pirate brig were some five miles to leeward. Her blood-red flag had been run up to the fore-peak, as if in mockery of the prey the pirates felt sure could not escape them—and the booming noise of a heavy gun had reached the ears of the fugitives, as if to signal their predestined doom. Yet the calm, round moon looked down upon the gloomy waters with the same serene countenance that had gazed into their bosom for thousands of years, and trod upward on her starry pathway with the same queenly pace; yet, perchance, in her own domains contention and strife, animosity and bloodshed were rife; perchance the sound of tumultuous war, even then, was echoing among her mountains, and staining her streams with gore.
[To be continued.