Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/265

 This gentle intimation that Meerta had their lives in her hand, induced Sam to ask modestly what she would have him do.

"Go," she replied promptly, "take rifles, swords, an' poodre. Hide till pyrits go 'way. If de finds you—fight. Better fight dan be skin alive!"

"Unquestionably," said Sam, with a mingled laugh and shudder, in which his companions joined—as regards the shudder at least, if not the laugh.

Acting promptly on the suggestion, Sam armed himself and his comrades each with a good breech-loading rifle, as much ammunition as he could conveniently carry, and an English sword. Then, descending the mountain on the side opposite to the harbour they disappeared in the dark and tangled underwood of the palm-grove. Letta went a short distance with them.

"They won't kill Meerta or blind Bungo," she said, on the way down. "They 're too useful, though they often treat them badly. Meerta sent me away to hide here the last time the strange bad men came. She thinks I go hide to-night, but I won't; so, good-night."

"But surely you don't mean to put yourself in the power of the pirates?" said Robin.

"No, never fear," returned the child with a laugh. "I know how to see them without they see me."