"I am so _bien aise_ to see my younger friend.
Up vis you!" "Come along, Mike," said Vince, in a low voice; "it's all right." Mike did not seem to think so, but he followed Vince up the rope into the fissure, after one of the armed men; the captain came next, and he kept on talking in his bantering tone as they crept along the awkward rift.
"Vairy clever; vairy good!" he cried.

"I see you know ze vay.

It is _magnifique_.

You see, I find I have visitor, and zey do not know ven ze _dejeuner_ is _pret_, so I am oblige to make one leetle--vat you call it--trap-springe, and catch ze leetle bird." A rope was ready at the other end of the fissure, and as Vince dropped down it was into the presence of half a dozen more men, while in the rapid glance that he cast round, the boy saw that a boat was drawn up on the sand and a fire of wood was burning close down to the water's edge.
Vince noticed, too, that one of the men who followed stopped back by the rope, with his drawn cutlass carried military fashion; and his action gave a pretty good proof that everything had been carefully planned beforehand in connection with the "trap-springe," as the Frenchman called it.
Preparations had already been made for breakfast, one of the men acting as cook; and in a short time kegs were stood on end round a beautifully clean white tablecloth spread upon the soft sand; excellent coffee, good bread-and-butter, and fried mackerel were placed before them, and the French captain presided.
The boys felt exceedingly nervous and uncomfortable, for they could see plainly enough that their captor was playing with them, and acting a part.

They knew, too, that they were prisoners, and shivers of remorse ran through them as the thought of the anxious ones at home kept troubling them; but there was a masterfulness about their fierce young appetites, sharpened to a maddening desire by long fasting, which, after the first choking mouthful or two, would not be gainsaid; and they soon set to work voraciously, while the captain ate as heartily, and his men, all but the sentry, gathered together by themselves to make their breakfast alone.
"Brava!" cried the captain, helping them liberally to the capital breakfast before them: "I can you not tell how vairy glad I am to see my young _amis_.