Page:The queen's museum, and other fanciful tales.djvu/29

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delight. He ran about from box to bale, looking at the rare treasures which some of the robbers showed him.

The two captives were fed and lodged very well; and the next day the Captain called them and the band together, and addressed them.

'We are now twenty-nine in number,' he said; 'twenty-seven full members, and two on probation. Tonight we are about to undertake a very important expedition, in which we shall all join. We shall fasten up the door of the cave, and at the proper time I shall tell you to what place we are going.'

An hour or two before midnight the band set out, accompanied by the Stranger and the Hermit's Pupil; and when they had gone some miles the Captain halted them to inform them of the object of the expedition. 'We are going,' he said, 'to rob