Page:Ballantyne--The Coral Island.djvu/295

 "I should just think it was!" interrupted Peterkin, looking at Jack over the edge of a monstrous potato which he happened to be devouring at the time.

"Well," continued Jack," you may guess my consternation when you did not answer to my halloo. At first I imagined that the pirates must have killed you. and left you in the bush, or thrown you into the sea; then it occurred to me that this would have served no end of theirs, so I came to the conclusion that they must have carried you away with them. As this thought struck me, I observed the pirate schooner standing away to the nor'ard, almost hull-down on the horizon, and I sat down on the rocks to watch her as she slowly sank from my sight. And I tell you, Ralph, my boy. that I shed more tears that time, at losing you, than I lave done, I verily believe, all my life before—"

"Pardon me, Jack, for interrupting," said Peterkin; "surely you must be mistaken in that; you've often told me that when you were a baby, you used to howl and roar from morning to—"

"Hold your tongue, Peterkin," cried Jack. "Well, after the schooner had disappeared, I dived back into the cave, much to Peterkin's relief, and told him what I had seen. We sat down and had a long talk over this matter, and then we agreed to make a regular, systematic search through the woods, so as to make sure, at least, that you had not been killed. But now we thought of the diffculty of getting out of the cave without your help. Peterkin became dreadfully nervous when he thought of this; and I must confess that I felt some alarm, for, of course, I could not hope alone to take him out so quickly as we two together had brought him in; and he himself vowed that, if we had been a moment longer with him