"
"You don't mean that father is dead?" she asked, a look of
terror coming to her eyes.
"Not that--we hope," replied Norris. "He has been taken
prisoner by these half-breed devils on the island. I doubt if
they have killed him--we were going to his rescue when we
ourselves were captured. He and Mr. Mallory were taken three
days ago."
"Mallory!" shouted Billy Byrne, who had entirely recovered
from the blow that had merely served to stun him for a
moment. "Is Mallory alive?"
"He was yesterday," replied Norris; "these fellows from
whom you so bravely rescued us told us that much."
"Thank God!" whispered Billy Byrne.
"What made you think he was dead?" inquired the officer,
looking closely at Byrne as though trying to place him.
Another man might have attempted to evade the question
but the new Billy Byrne was no coward in any department of
his moral or physical structure.
"Because I thought that I had killed him," he replied, "the
day that we took the Lotus."
Captain Norris looked at the speaker in undisguised horror.
"You!" he cried. "You were one of those damned cut-throats!
You the man that nearly killed poor Mr. Mallory!
Miss Harding, has he offered you any indignities?"
"Don't judge him rashly, Captain Norris," said the girl.
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