Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/333

 That seemed to loose his tongue, and from his mouth flowed a torrent of the most awful abuse the prisoners had ever heard. It was directed toward the men who had dared contemplate this thing without his sanction, and principally against the cowering unfortunate who had not dared rise from where his chief’s heavy fist had sprawled him.

“And you would have killed Thandar,” he shrieked. “Thandar, who saved my life!”

And then he fell to kicking the prostrate man until Thandar himself was forced to intercede in the wretch’s behalf.

With the coming of Tsao Ming the troubles of the prisoners evaporated in thin air, for when he found that the owner of the Priscilla was Thandar’s father he restored the yacht and all the loot that his men had taken from it to their rightful owners. Nor would he have stopped there had they permitted him to have his way, which was no less than to behead half a dozen of his unfortunate lieutenants who had been over-zealous in the performance of their piratical duties.

Tsao Ming’s picturesque villains replenished the water casks of the Priscilla and carried aboard her a sufficient stock of provisions to insure her company a plentiful table to Honolulu, the port they had chosen as their first stop.

And when the preparations were completed a