a sight of the figure of Mole standing in an unmistakably listening posture, though you would have said his attention was fixed by something that was happening forward. "No further need to detain you, cook," I exclaimed, loudly and cheerfully; "if you can persuade the crew-for your influence, you know, as 'doctor' ought to be considerable--to let me navigate the brig to any point nearer to Rio than Cuba, you will be doing not me but this lady a prodigious service."

The figure at the skylight moved away. He probably guessed by the change of my voice that I knew he was listening. The cook exclaimed: "The destination of this here wessel is a matter as consarns all hands. It's not for any one man more'n another to interfere. Cuba's been settled upon, and I allow that the arrangement had best be left alone." With that he went on deck.

"I think you are a little indiscreet," said Miss Grant, softly.

"Perhaps so," I replied, "but the fellow with his pale face and projecting eyes had, I thought, an honest look, and I seemed to find a suggestion of garrulity lying behind his loitering here. But I am mistaken. I must be cautious, as you say; still it is distracting not to be able to make even a guess at the intentions of the fellows."

"You must expect to be watched," she continued. "We shall have to be exceedingly cautious in conversing, and, Mr. Musgrave, it will not do for you to question any of the men. You must be reserved as they are, attend to the navigation of the ship according to their requirements, satisfy them with your honesty as a navigator by such proofs as their ignorance will suffer them to understand, and leave the rest to time and to chance. It must be so!" she cried, still softly, yet with impetuosity in the drawing of her breath. "It is for time and chance to decide all things. Let one's condition be that of a princess, or as dark and as full of care as ours now, it is the same."

σε

Oh, Mr. Musgrave, we do not know human nature even when we are whitehaired," she cried, "and you are so young yet!"

"That is so," said I, stealing a look at her to see if there was any correspondence between her eyes and her words. "But I am not so young as not to have known better than to suffer ourselves to proceed on this voyage, when perhaps, by insisting upon it, I could have got Broadwater to set us ashore in the English Channel. One hope I have however," with a further lowering of my voice; "it may not have occurred to the men. We have ships of war in the West Indian waters, and it is impossible to conjecture what might come of some smart sloop heaving us into view, and desiring a closer acquaintance from symptoms which the astute naval eye can often discern in what to another is mere timber, canvas, and an ugly head or two peeping over the rail."

I

But the idea of a cruiser overhauling us was a vague hope at best. might think to lighten Miss Grant's anxiety, as well as steal a little ease for myself out of the fancies that came into my head by talking of such things. But as the nations were then at peace, as piracy was pretty nearly extinct, and as there was nothing to suggest the slaver in the aspect of the Iron Crown, what excuse should a naval officer find in the mere cut of canvas, and trim of yards, and run of rail, whether ornamented or not with an ugly head or two, to send a boat aboard for a look at the brig's papers? The

island of Cuba bore above two thousand miles distant from us. How many days' sailing that might signify no man would have cared to conjecture. We might indeed look for the trades anon, and blow along briskly to the quartering gale, without need for days at a stretch perhaps to check a brace or stand by a halliard. But the sun eats out the heart of the steady blowing as the Antilles are approached, and the sweeping wind that has been whitening the curl of the dark blue chasing billows dies out into parched catspaws, brief bursts of fiery squall, and long intervals of glassy, rotting calm, with nothing to tarnish the surface of the blinding mirror but the jump of the skipjack, or the thin blue line that denotes the wake of the wet black fin of the shark.

But at sea what happens for the day must suffice for it, and the breeze had now settled into so fixed and pleasant a humming, that I was scarce surprised when returning on deck after breakfast, to find a hint in the blue shadowiness in the north-east, with here and there a head of cloud lifting out of it, of the presence or the approach of the regular trade-wind. All hands were on deck forward saving Mole, who was aft, and Charles at the wheel. They were lying sprawling, sitting about, smoking to a man, yarning, with often a loud laugh breaking from one or another of them. Indeed, it was more like a dog-watch scene on a fine summer's night than such a picture as one would look for in the work-up, hard-going hours of the forenoon watch. Over the side the seas ran short, and broke friskily. Again and again, from either bow, a score of flying fish would dart from the arch of wave there as though some young sea-god was showering barbs of mother-of-pearl up into the sunny air.

It was my watch on deck, and Mole on my arrival was going forward, when I stopped him.

"Is there a man aboard this vessel," said I, "who has any knowledge of navigation?"

"Not going to such lengths," he answered, "as taking the height of the sun and discovering our situation by celestial observations. But I don't doubt, if I was put to it, that I should be able to find my way about with the log-line, supposing my departure's correct."

"Then," said I, "I may judge, even from what you say, that you are able to follow my navigation, and to form an opinion of its correctness by looking at the course I mark down on the chart?"

"Yes, sir, I should be able to do that."

"I am glad to hear it. I desire that my goodwill should be appreciated. The men would not doubt my sincerity or my capacity with you at hand to tell them that you have checked my reckonings, and that I am heading true to their wishes."

"We're all quite satisfied, sir," he responded, with a falcon glance at me under the careless droop of his lids. "We have no fear of your deceiving of us ;" and with a half-flourish of his hand to his head he went towards the forecastle, leaving me under the impression that I had said too much, and that it would be as well for me in future to rehearse whatever I might wish to say to the men with Miss Grant before expressing myself.

As I walked the deck alone, I would catch now and again an odd, inquiring sort of look from Charles, who grasped the wheel. It was almost wistful in its way, and with the idea of giving him a chance to interpret it, I came presently to a stand at the quarter, sending a light glance astern, and then made a stride to the binnacle, from which I peered to the canvas aloft, as though to remark with what steadiness the craft swung through it under the dead weather drag of the great studding sail. My aversion to the fellow was not without a weak element of pity for him. I seemed to remember now, oddly enough, as I held him within the sphere of my sight without regarding him, the kind of

light that had come into his face like a smile when, as he tugged at his oar in the boat that carried us aboard in the Downs, he had let his eyes rest on Miss Grant, before sending them on to old Broadwater who sat abaft her.

I

"Sir," he suddenly exclaimed. turned with an air of surprise at being accosted by him. "It's known to you and the lady, sir, that I killed the mate. He drove me wild in the dark, as I stood here, with more outrageous language than the captain himself could use. He rose the devil in me, and I drew my knife-though the moment after I could have stabbed myself for doing of it." He dragged over a spoke with a mechanical twist; his olive-coloured complexion had perished into a sickly, sallow green, which his dark eyes, gleaming with the contending passions in him, so accentuated that the memory of his visage was for long one of the ugliest phantoms that troubled my slumbers. I drew a pace away when he spoke of killing the mate; he continued talking hurriedly, as though he feared I should leave him before he had had his say. "You and the lady, sir, thinks of me as a bloody murderer, and so I am—so I

am!

But it begun and ended in what you know and saw. So help me all the good angels I was taught to pray to when I was a child, and so help me the blessed Virgin herself "-he let go the wheel with one of his little bands to make the sign of the cross upon his breast" whatsoever may have been the cause of the capt'n's disappearance, I am innocent of it. Do you believe me, sir?"

I looked at him a moment and said, "I do. But do you mean to suggest that he met his end by foul play?"

He made a passionate gesture and cried: "I know nothing about it, sir. I want you to believe that, and I want the lady to believe it more'n you. She had pity for me when I-when I-" He paused with a gasp and a swift pointing towards the foremast with a trembling hand.

She came on deck at that moment. "I am glad to learn what you have told me," said I; and I added coldly, for aversion was strong in me again, and besides, his very words were as good as owning that the captain had been murdered, though not by him, "No doubt the unhappy man fell crazy with drink and temper, and through the loss of the boat, along with his conscience over the drowning of the cabin-boy, and quietly sneaked overboard ;" and so saying I walked over to Miss Grant.

I called to some men to spread the little scrap of awning the brig carried, and three or four of them came instantly tumbling aft as willingly as one could wish. I then placed a chair for Miss Grant to windward, where I could sometimes halt in my walk to have a chat with her, for now that I had charge of the deck, her accompanying me in my pacings would scarcely look ship-shape in the eyes of the seamen. But I made no reference to my conversation with the half-blood, beyond merely telling her in a whisper that the fellow had, in an odd way, protested himself as innocent of whatever the cause might have been of Broadwater's disappearance; whence I thought it was certainly to be gathered that the old man had been made away with. However, it was not a little comforting, I can tell you, to feel that this Charles, whom I held in secret dread, was equal to feeling grateful to Miss Grant for the concern and indignation his punishment at the foremast had excited in her. It was gratifying to me moreover to know that he had conscience enough left in him to shrink from suspicion of another dark deed. Indeed my talk with the fellow, followed on by the lively willingness of the men who responded to my order to lay aft and spread the awning, would have put, I believe, something of lightness into my tread of the quarter-deck, specially with the radiant scene of heaven and ocean to turn from to Miss Aurelia's dark eyes, which often followed me as I walked, but for the dull

oppressive wonder as to what project the crew had in mind in making me head for Cuba, a thing that gnawed in the secret recesses of my mind like some sulky throbbing ache of a nerve.

Before my watch was out, however, there happened an incident which gave me to know very plainly that the sailors' resolution was fixed in one direction, at all events. The breeze had freshened—it was a little before ten o'clock in the morning-clouds rounded and of silken texture, like growing puffs of powder smoke from great ordnance fired below the horizon, were sailing up into the blue hollow which the sunshine so filled that it was all azure dazzle over our mastheads; the brig was sliding along at some five knots, cradling her form from one dark blue brow to another, with the whipped water merrily sparkling into billows and melting into cream all along her as she ran. Suddenly a man, who was standing on the forecastle-head, bawled out, "Sail ho!" to which cry I noticed that the others, who lounged or lay sprawling about the deck near the galley, immediately started to their feet and ran to the rail to look.

"Where away?" I sang out. "Broad on the weather-bow," came back the answer.

I looked, and at once descried a sail leaning like a white shaft in the quarter the man had indicated, and, as I might judge by the heel of her, by which one saw that she must be hugging the wind, heading directly for us. I went to the companion for the glass, and, bringing the tubes to bear, made the stranger out to be a small brigantine. The hands forward over the rail watched her steadfastly. I waited and had another look at her, and found her growing rapidly. Indeed, that was to be expected, for our united pace would probably be closing us at the rate of some ten or twelve knots in the hour. I hailed the forecastle, and desired that Mr. Mole should be roused up and sent aft to me. He sprang through the hatch within a minute after he had been called, blink

ing with sleep and the darkness in his eyes against the splendour on deck, but laying aft nevertheless as briskly as if he had the scent of danger in his nostrils.

"What's the matter now, sir?" he cried out, as he approached.

"I simply want to be advised," said I; and pointing to the little brigantine that was coming along with her washstreak down in the smother, and the weather-leeches of her topsail and topgallant-sail and royal shivering like the fly of a flag in a breeze to the grip of the helmsman's luff, I said, "You see that fellow out there?"

He shaded his eyes and answered, "Plain enough, sir."

"Take that glass," I exclaimed, "and look at her, and tell me what you observe."

He worked away with the telescope, and then suddenly exclaimed, ""Taint English colours, is it? No, it's Norwegian-Jack down-flying half

"Can't help it if there are, sir," he cried, vehemently. "We're bound to shove on: there's nothen that must stop us! " and a dark look came into his face, as though he supposed I was going to argue, and was angry by anticipation.

"We'll

He

"Be it so," I exclaimed. keep straight on, as you say." sent a look full of significance at the man who had relieved Charles at the wheel, and then went forward and leant upon the rail alongside the others, staring his hardest, as they were, at the approaching vessel.

What they had suspected in her appearance I don't know, but I gathered he had told them of the distresssignal and of the nationality of itscarce yet visible to the naked eyeby the lapsing of most of them from

their intent, strained, eager posture into a half-lounging, careless attitude. I waited a little, and then viewing her again through the glass, I was not a little surprised to remark that she appeared to be full of people. I examined her carefully, and was sure I could not be mistaken. If the swarm of glimmering dots along the whole length of her rail were not human faces, it would puzzle a man to guess what else they could be. Presently the men noticed this too, for I saw some of them give their breeches an uneasy hitch as they brought their eyes away from her to our own canvas with sharp starings aft, as though they feared I might play them some ugly trick if I were not closely watched. The size of the brigantine scarcely exceeded a hundred and fifty tons, and I never remember seeing a prettier model. She had a true piratical sheer forwards, a run of bow into a knifelike cut-water, sheathing green with usage, that flickered with a sort of emerald sheen to the light of the snow that boiled about her forefoot as she rose to the fine-weather surge. The swells of her well-cut canvas leaned to us sunwards with milk-white softness in the shine of them; nothing afloat could look more saucy, taut, and sea-worthy, and one almost suspected some sinister device in the dumb appeal of the speck of crimson bunting with its blue cross, white margined, and inverted Jack, only that the crowd of heads, now distinctly visible, made such a puzzlement of the sight as effectually checked speculation. watched her intently through the glass, and noticed much motioning of arms and brandishing of caps and other headgear amongst her people. It needed no specially clear eye for human distress to interpret those gesticulations into an earnest entreaty to us to bring the brig to the wind. I stood at the rail watching her, and Miss Grant came to my side.

I

"There are women aboard, and children too," I cried; "at least a hundred people, I should say. They No. 355.-Vol. LX.

will think us demons for not attending to their signal."

"What do you imagine they need?" she inquired.

66

They may have run short of provisions, or worse still, of water," I answered, steadfastly examining the length of her black sides for any bright spout from the scuppers that might tell me her pumps were going.

The men along the line of bulwarks watched her with faces as hard as figureheads, whilst at intervals a fellow would drop from his akimbo arms upon the rail to light his pipe at the galley fire, returning promptly however, and resuming his place, where he would stand quietly with a wooden-headed look, but nevertheless with sooty pipe in mouth, blowing out clouds that told of some inward perturbation. On a sudden the brigantine put her helm up, slackened away her sheets fore and aft along with the lee-braces, and headed direct

for us. Her manœuvre startled me, for I thought she meant to run us aboard. The clipper-hull of her, now that she was making a free wind of it, swept like the shadow of a cloud over the water. Mole sprang aft to the quarter-deck in a few bounds.

"What's she up to, Mr. Musgrave?" he shouted. "Does she mean to board us, think ye?"

"No, no; to speak us, man-to speak us," I answered, for already her intention was made manifest to me by a subtle shifting of her helm, that would enable her presently to range within speaking distance of us, heading as we were. In another ten minutes she was within a biscuit-toss, almost directly abreast to windward, but they had to let go their royal and topgallanthalliards and scandalize their mainsail, as it is termed, to keep their position; for though the brig was under every stitch of canvas that would draw, with studding-sails swelling cloud-like one on top of another far beyond her weather-side, the clipper to windward with all her canvas aboard would have forged ahead like a steamer, and been out of hail in five minutes. There

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