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64 this part of the world used to be nateral-born pirates—those with Malay blood especially."

"I don't believe in giving up the ship, not if it can be helped," said I.

"Neither do I!" answered Tom Dawson, and the others nodded in agreement.

"The only question is," continued Watt Brown, "now that we abandoned the Dart, doesn't she belong to whoever finds her?"

"What can these nagers do wid a ship like her?" burst out Matt Gory. "Sure an' they wouldn't know how to manage her, even if they sthopped up the lake in her bow!"

At this point the chief of the natives came forward and motioned for us to be silent, and when Gory attempted to go on, slapped the Irish sailor on the cheek. Gory was "boiling mad," as the saying goes, but could do nothing with his hands bound behind him; and so the conversation had to be dropped.

The Dart had stranded at the mouth of a fair-sized stream flowing into the ocean, or to be more correct, the China Sea, and lay secure from any ordinary storm which might come up. I wondered how she had gotten in past the breakers so well, and so did Tom Dawson, as he told me later. It was easily explained when we learned the truth, which now was not long in being revealed.