Hickory and Patsey breathed hard
with satisfaction: it was beyond their wildest dreams of mystery and
romance. Even Wan Lee appeared transfigured into a superior being by the
potency of his own spells. But an unaccountable disturbance of some
kind in the dim interior of the tunnel quickly drew the blood from
their blanched cheeks again. It was a sound like coughing, followed by
something like an oath.
"He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick," said Hickory in a loud whisper.
A slight laugh, that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.
"See!" said Wan Lee. "Evil Spillet he likee Chinee; try talkee him."
The Pirates looked at Wan Lee, not without a certain envy of this
manifest favoritism. A fearful desire to continue their awful
experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking
possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of
childhood, immediately began to extemporize a house for the party at
the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the
fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper. That frugal meal,
consisting of half a ginger biscuit divided into five small portions,
each served on a chip of wood, and having a deliciously mysterious
flavor of gunpowder and smoke, was soon over.
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