CHAPTER XVII.

UNMASKED.

The time spent by the captain and his companions in the place where the four castaways were located must have appeared interminable to the wretched Hawkshaw, as they remained there fully an hour, for much had to be inquired into, and much more related and explained.

Resolved to question, cross-question, sift, and refine, and all unconscious of the surprise that was awaiting him, Mr. Basset, with tolerable lawyer-like activity and importance, fussily followed jolly Captain Phillips, who had one hand stuffed into that pocket of his pea-jacket which held his revolver, and in the other hand he swung a ship's lantern.

To Mr. Basset's unpractised eye, the 'tween decks seemed rather a dreary den, to say the best of it. It was lower in height, or, to write more correctly, between beams, than the ship's cabin, and its furniture was exceedingly simple, consisting only of a small breaker or gang-cask, and wooden drinking tot, set upon a sea-chest which was securely lashed to the bulkhead, while a railway rug and poncho wrapper lay thereby.

Then his eye caught four queer-looking long bags, that swung by clews and cleats from the beams longitudinally, and ont of each of the aforesaid bags a human face was peering, with eyes expressive of inquiry and interest; but their features could not be discerned, for all was darkness, or nearly so, except where the light of the lantern fell.

"Hallo, my friends," said Captain Phillips, as he held his lantern up, and took a rapid survey of them all, "so you are awake, I see. What the deuce has been doing here, that we are all turned up in the night, or rather the middle of the morning watch, in this way, eh?"

"I don't understand what it is all about, sir," replied Tom Bartelot; "but a few minutes ago, in my sleep, I heard a terrible cry."

"Who was it that bit the gentleman?" asked Phillips, angrily.

"I did, your honour," replied Noah Gawthrop, looking over the edge of his hammock, and twitching his grizzled forelock.

"You—and you acknowledge it!" said the captain, turning towards him with angry surprise.

"Yes; and I hope as I have left the marks o' my blessed grinders in him, that's all."

"The fellow is mad," said Mr. Basset in an undertone.

"Do you think so?"

"Who else would talk thus?"

"Likely enough, sir," whispered Joe, the steward; "for I heard that old one this morning saying that he was tormented by a marine drummer, and shouting for all hands to reef topsails. He seemed to think himself on board a man-o'-war."

"A little crazed, perhaps, by recent suffering," suggested Mr. Basset. "A short sleep may soothe him; but a bite is a serious offence—a very serious offence."

"I ain't no more mad than your honour," said Noah, who had overheard their whispers, and looked up angrily; then he added, in a different tone, "But—is that you, Captain Phillips—lor' bless you, don't you mind o' me?"

"No, I do not," replied the captain, curtly.

"Not remember old Noah Gawthrop, as sailed for ten year and more with your brother, Captain Bill, and was wrecked with him in the Straits of Sunda?"

"Noah, it is, by Jupiter!" exclaimed Phillips, shaking the old seaman's hand with genuine warmth. "This is, indeed, strange; 'tis long since we last met, Noah."

"Five years ago, if it is a day, since I came home from the West Ingees, and ran up the Mersey in a old sweating sugar-ship—her berths aft and bunks for'ard a swarming with bugs and cockroaches, a crew of Jamaiky darkies, and her lower rigging all alive with poll-parrots. I see you minds o' me, Captain Phillips—lor' bless me, in course you does, and know that I am no more mad than yourself, or my own good captain here, Mr. Thomas Bartelot, of the Princess as was, poor old craft."

"Oh, glad to see you, captain," said Phillips, shaking hands with Tom on this blunt introduction; "and glad too, that we came so opportunely to save you."

"Yes," resumed Noah, "I'm the man as saved your nevvy, Master Bill, when all hands went down in the Straits of Sunda, and I brought the child home with me, and gave him to yourself, as your honour very well knows. I was father and mother, dry nurse, and wet nurse, and everything to that 'ere boy, I was; and many a time I rope's-ended him, too, for putting plugs o' powder in my 'baccy pipe, or japanning the starn o' my trousers with new pitch. So you knows me well enough."

"Of course I do, Noah, my brave old salt."

"Of course you does. Ah, sir, your brother, Captain Bill, would never have been lost, but in passing the straits during a south-east monsoon, he hugged the coast of Java, with his port tacks aboard, and so we went bump ashore on a blessed coral reef, where the sea made clean breaches over us. I made a grab at Master Bill, who was hauling his pet tom-cat by the tail out o' the wash to leeward, and then we all crouched under the weather-bulwarks, ready to cut away the masts, if necessary. But the sea saved us the trouble; for there came a regular snorer, that carried away the topmasts at the caps, breaking them sharp off like 'baccy pipes, the midship-house, boats, and everything went to leeward, while the ship parted, breaking her back fairly on the reef. I found myself in the dark, swimming away for the bare life, among sharks and long seaweed, with little Bill riding on my back like Sinbad's Old Man o' the Sea, and, top of all, the tom-cat, holding on to Bill with all his claws out. 'Hold on, you young warmint,' says I, and so he did, until we got ashore, and next day we were sent off by the Dutch in a queer jigamaree, with a lateen sail forward, and a dandy in her starn, to a British man-o'-war, that was bearing through the straits on a taut bowline, before the same monsoon that finished us off on the coral reef."

"But why did you bite the man?" asked Captain Phillips, who had listened with some impatience, returning to the matter in hand.

"Because he is a pirate, if ever one broke biscuit!'

"Take care, Noah; he is one of our cabin passengers."

"I was a watching him, your honour, and I had queer suspicions that he meant foul play to one of us at least, and so I pretended to snooze, keeping watch with one eye open, though he did pass the light twice athwart my face. I saw him, your honour, though he doused the glim, and I could make out that he was going to strangle—to garotte, in true Californy style—my shipmate here, young Master Morley Ashton, who was asleep——"

"Mr. Morley Ashton!" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in an excited voice, as he hurried round to the other side of the hammock; "I should like to see the gentleman who is named so."

"Surely I should know that voice!" cried Morley, springing up in his hammock, and almost falling back within it, overwhelmed by astonishment on finding himself face to face with Mr. Basset—with the father of Ethel!

"What is this?—who is this? You, Morley Ashton, on board the Hermione?" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in a gust of genuine bewilderment, equalled only by that of Morley, who trembled with anticipation and astonishment, and who felt at his heart a sudden and clamorous joy. "You one of the four men taken from that melancholy wreck! How came it to be? Explain—tell me. Good heavens! how? Oh, my poor boy, Morley, we have long numbered you with the dead, and have mourned for you as such—none more, believe me, than my dearest girl."

"Where am I, sir?—what ship is this?" stammered Morley, as a new light began to break in upon him, while grasping Mr. Basset's hand, with one arm thrown caressingly round his neck. "Am I on board the Hermione? Has she picked us up—saved us from death?"

"Yes, sir; this is the Hermione, of London," said Captain Phillips, "too long delayed by contrary winds, and the loss of a mast near the Canaries."

"Oh, Morley Ashton," began Mr. Basset, "if you did but know——"

"Ashton?—Ashton?" interrupted the captain; "are you the gentleman who was to have sailed with us—who telegraphed for a cabin berth, and was not forthcoming when we dropped down the river?"

"I am the same, sir."

"What came of you? How did you disappear?"

"I was a victim to the foulest treachery and cowardice!"

"At the hands of whom?" asked Mr. Basset.

"Cramply Hawkshaw."

"What! he whom Gawthrop bit in the dark?"

"Bit, that I might know him again, your honour, for I warn't strong enough to grapple with him."

"And who, he says, attempted to strangle you in your sleep?" asked Dr. Heriot, coming forward.

"Hawkshaw here! on board with you—with her!" said Morley, in a faint voice, as certain undefinable, but terrible, suspicions arose in his mind.

"Yes; he is with us, a cabin passenger," replied Mr. Basset.

"Here! here! on board the Hermione?" continued Morley, almost vacantly, for his brain spun round.

"Yes, sir, in your place," said the captain.

"Great Heavens!"

"Your passage was taken out, your berth ready, the money paid; but you had slipped from your moorings somehow, so he went in your place. There is nothing very wonderful in that, is there?"

"He went with Ethel?" said Morley, in a tremulous and imploring voice to Mr. Basset.

"He came with me, as the son of my old friend, Tom Hawkshaw, of Lincoln's Inn, to push his fortune in the Mauritius," said Mr. Basset, hastily.

"And Ethel—Ethel?" continued Morley, in a broken voice, while his eyes filled with tears.

"Is well, though she has mourned for you deeply," replied Mr. Basset. "But pray be calm, my poor boy. How terribly agitated you are! Do not doubt her, or misunderstand me."

"And I shall see her—see her again?"

"Very soon—in ten minutes, perhaps."

"Oh, this is indeed happiness," sighed Morley, sinking back in his hammock. "Heaven is kind—most singularly merciful to me. But Hawkshaw—that wretch!" he added, starting up with new energy. "Oh, Ethel must shun, avoid and loathe him, for she knows not that he is an assassin!"

"How an assassin?"

"Or one who would be such."

"A regular-built pirate, and no mistake—a rascally Californy piccaroon!" added Noah, with sundry adjectives, which we feel the propriety of omitting.

"Aye, Mr. Basset, as Douglas Jerrold says, 'he is a scoundrel, who would whet a knife on his father's tombstone to kill his mother.' Oh, you know him not as I too surely, too truly, and too well know him, and all of which he is capable."

"These are severe and sweeping assertions. Explain this enigma—this most unaccountable affair."

"You remember, Mr. Basset, the night of my sudden disappearance from Laurel Lodge?"

"I shall never forget it. You had gone to Acton station, concerning a telegram from London."

"Concerning a berth in this very ship!"

"Yes."

"Returning alone, I met Cramply Hawkshaw, who entered into conversation with me, offered me a cigar, gradually lured me to the summit of the rocks above the Chine. There we sat listening to the village chimes in the old church tower, chatting, smoking, and enjoying the pleasant breeze from the Bristol Channel, till he, inspired by rivalry, jealousy, and hate, or by some fiendish combination of them all, at a moment when I was completely off my guard, by one furious blow struck me over the cliff into the Chine!"

"The Chine—oh, my God!" said Mr. Basset, in a voice that sank low with horror. "We came to look for you, Cramply and I, for he said that he had seen you walking there, and certainly we found marks of a struggle—the gravel dislodged, and the turf torn. You fell into the sea of course, but from that height! How—by what miracle did you escape?"

"A miracle, a narrow chance indeed! A turf-covered ledge received me, and there for many, many hours, more than a night and a day, I remained sleepless, and scarcely daring to move, chilled less perhaps by the cold sea-breeze than by the horror of drowning if I rolled off the narrow shelf, of dying slowly by starvation and falling a prey to the sea-birds at last, till I was saved by my friend Captain Bartelot, whose vessel passed below me."

Excited by the memory of all he had undergone, Morley's voice faltered and grew weak as he spoke.

"Yes, sir," said Bartelot, striking in, "we chanced to see a human figure perched up among the gulls and cormorants, so we made a longer tack close in shore, and sent off a boat's crew, who climbed to the top of the rocks and hove him the end of a line. He was then towed up, and being quite insensible, Morrison, my mate, brought him on board. So, being outward bound—a storm having been signalled by Admiral Fitzroy, and beginning to break white in the offing, we had no time for backing and filling, or chopping about the rocky shore at Acton—I stood right down the Channel, intending to put him aboard the first suitable ship. We never overhauled any but foreigners, so we took him with us to Rio. He has often been well-nigh out of his mind sometimes, sir, about—I may be pardoned mentioning her name—Miss Basset; but he was in safe hands with me, sir, his old schoolfellow, Tom Bartelot."

"A strange and terrible story!" exclaimed Dr. Heriot.

"Poor Ethel, Morley," said Mr. Basset; "oh, what she has endured, and in silence, too!"

"I can know that well, by what I, too, endured. Dear, dear Ethel; and I shall see her——"

"So soon as she can be wisely informed of the great surprise, of the great joy, that await her. But that fellow, Hawkshaw—the fact of how I have been duped, deluded, and disgraced by the pretended friendship of such a man, falls like a thunderbolt upon me!" exclaimed good, easy Mr. Scriven Basset, with more energy than he was wont to exhibit, "and to think of my poor, sweet, and virtuous girls being contaminated by the society of such a man, and my secluded home being polluted by his presence, though sheltered there under the name of his good and worthy father! Damme! it's enough to make one suspicious of all mankind!"

Mr. Basset thrust one hand into his breast, and the other under the tails of his coat, and trod to and fro the whole length of the 'tween-decks, about twelve feet or so, swelling and reddening with just ire and indignation.

Bartelot, Morrison, and Gawthrop added many details corroborating the remarkable escape of Morley from Acton Chine, and descriptive of his mental sufferings during the voyage to Rio de Janeiro; and by the time this interview, so full of stirring interest to all concerned in it, was over, and the captain and his companions had quitted the 'tween-decks, a new day had dawned, the sun was rising brightly from the sea, and throwing the shadow of the lofty Hermione far astern upon the gleaming waters to the westward.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE EXPULSION.

Hawkshaw's hand, as we have stated, fell unconsciously on the loaded revolver which lay by his side, but was instantly withdrawn.

He had not the courage to die by his own hand, in the fashion to which the old Romans were so partial in all their griefs and difficulties. He looked up with a half-haggard and half-bullying or defiant expression, as Captain Phillips, Mr. Quail, the doctor, and Mr. Basset entered the cabin.

The latter gave him a long, steady, and withering glance, and after knocking at the door of Ethel's little cabin or state-room, entered it hastily. Then the varying exclamations of astonishment and joy which were heard within it sounded as additional knells of disgrace—they might be those of death to Cramply Hawkshaw; and now, after surveying him long and sternly, Captain Phillips addressed him with great deliberation.

Hawkshaw found himself regarded with horror and aversion, but no ashes of fire were heaped upon his miserable head, for the good, jolly captain was the only person who spoke.

"Sir, give me up that revolver."

Hawkshaw seemed to be stunned, and did not reply.

"The revolver, sir; do you hear me?"

"Why?"

"Never mind why or wherefore—they matter little now."

"I thought that we were all armed for a particular purpose."

Captain Phillips smiled bitterly.

"Yes," said he; "but you can be no longer trusted with arms on board my ship."

"Indeed!" said Hawkshaw, who knew not very well whether to cringe or bully, and pondered in his desperation.

"Yes; so surrender your arms. I'm an easy-going fellow, but one who won't be trifled with, for all that. Your revolver!"

Hawkshaw reluctantly handed Captain Phillips the loaded weapon.

"Thank you. Now, sir, I must inform you that we have had a long interview with the men in the 'tween-decks—those whom you so kindly undertook to watch, though such a duty was scarcely necessary—and after the revelations they have made, but chiefly after the account given of you by Mr. Morley Ashton—you wince at the name, I see—you can no longer remain in the cabin of the Hermione."

"Revelations! Did I not say that one—one at least—of these men was mad?"

"You shall not be sent forward," continued the captain, "among my crew, however congenial some of their spirits may be."

"What, then?" asked Hawkshaw, with undisguised alarm.

"You shall be secluded between decks till the end of the voyage, or be sent on shore at the first land we make, in the hope that we may never see you more."

"At the Cape of Good Hope?" asked Hawkshaw eagerly.

"I do not mean to touch at the Cape now, as we are so far to the southward of it," replied the captain, little foreseeing that this information was to have a fatal influence over all on board.

"Sir," replied Hawkshaw, gathering courage for a moment, "may I remind you that my passage to the Isle of France——"

"Is paid for, you would say?"

"Yes—carambi!"

"By Mr. Ashton's money. Ha! ha! I have known of a man being marooned on a rock in the Gulf of Florida—aye, or set adrift on a hencoop, or in a punt, with three biscuits and a bottle of water, in the middle of the South Pacific—a poor devil who was far less criminal than you. I would to Heaven we had never seen you. No ship with such a thorough-bred rascal on board could hope for a prosperous voyage; and," continued the captain angrily, as his professional superstitions came to memory, "the fact of having you with us sufficiently accounts for the loss of our foremast after passing the Madeira Isles, for the mysterious loss of poor Manfredi, and the head winds we have uniformly encountered. Why, damme! we might as well have had a parson, or an undocked Tom cat aboard. Seclusion from among us is a punishment slight indeed for the crimes of which you have been guilty, but chiefly for your double and dastardly attempts upon the life of that young gentleman. You understand me, sir."

"I understand only, Captain Phillips, that your mind has been poisoned by a parcel of infamous falsehoods, which, on the first shore we make, I shall ram down the throat of him who uttered them with a pistol-bullet!"

"I hope the person referred to will not be such a confounded donkey as to exchange shots with a convicted assassin," replied Phillips.

"Assassin! I—I—I——"

Choking with sudden and uncontrollable passion, Hawkshaw sprang up from the locker, his bloodshot eyes flashing with fire, his face pale and haggard, the veins of his temples swollen like whipcord, and his heart stung with the idea that Ethel in her little cabin could hear all that passed. His voice, husky and inarticulate, failed him, but his bearing was so threatening that Captain Phillips cocked the revolver pistol, and said, sternly:

"If you attempt to strike me, I will shoot you down like a gull. Quit the cabin this instant, and if you would keep your heels out of the bilboes, never let me find you aft the break of the quarterdeck."

Hawkshaw's hands were opened and clenched convulsively, as if his fingers twitched for an object to grapple with, and on which to vent the pent-up rage and shame that consumed him; yet he found that he had no resource but to submit and retire, so he slowly left the cabin, but with an air of defiance which so ill became him, and so ill befitted his present predicament, that Phillips, the mate, and doctor, knew not whether to pity or laugh at him.

But the whole episode was a painful one, as they could not forget, at this climax of his humiliation, that this man, so summarily disgraced and cast forth from among them as an unclean thing, had been for so many months their companion and associate, their friend, and, to all appearance, their equal.

He repaired to the quarter-deck, and the cool breeze that swept over the morning sea gratefully fanned his flushed face and throbbing brow. For a time he was blind with rage, and trod mechanically to and fro over the very cabin wherein Ethel and Rose (now filled with tumultuous joy by the strange tidings their father had brought them, were making a hurried toilette); till the appearance of Mr. Quail, who came to relieve the deck, to call the watch, to change the helmsman, and have the log hove, recalled the stern order of Captain Phillips, and, descending the break of the quarter-deck, he went sullenly forward—a proscribed man.

As he did so a mocking laugh met his ear.

It came from Pedro Barradas—who had just relieved the wheel, and who, being ignorant of the events that had transpired in the cabin, naturally supposed that Hawkshaw had, as usual, quitted the quarter-deck to avoid him.

For a moment this laugh stung him deeply; but many emotions were conflicting in his breast on this miserable morning, so that he scarcely felt anger at Barradas.

He had passed a sleepless night; but no sensation of weariness felt he, as he clambered into the fore-rigging, and sat there to consider his position—to watch the inmates of the cabin, and to avoid the crew, until he could conceal himself somewhere for the night.

Oh, how he longed for its friendly shadow and concealment—longed for it, while the beams of the morning sun gilded all the sea, and lit up the full swelling sails of the Hermione.

Feverish, and madly excited by the many emotions which had convulsed him since the moment in which he recognised the sleeping Morley Ashton, and more especially by the terrible and wicked thoughts of the past night, a longing for vengeance, or victory, rather—victory at any risk or price—filled his heart, till he nearly became mad, when thoughts of his rival's safety, restoration, and triumph were contrasted with his own exposure, expulsion, and disgrace.

The crew, among whom he dared not venture, would soon learn the whole story, and, knowing alike their reckless character and their nefarious projects, he already felt, by anticipation, the sharp stings of their fierce and brutal mockery, and the coming vengeance of those he had contemptuously ignored—the Barradas.

"Why did I not put a bullet through my head before old Phillips took away my pistol?" thought he. "Had I done so, by this time, perhaps, I would have been peacefully at rest below the surface of that blue and shining sea, instead of being perched up here, a moody wretch—a miserable and disappointed outcast."

Slowly, slowly the sunny morning wore on.

He heard Joe the steward's bell—once a welcome sound—rung for breakfast. The smoking ham and eggs, broiled chicken, tea and coffee, were borne from the steaming galley, aft to the cabin; he knew that the whole party, with their familiar faces, would be assembled at table as usual; and others, too, he shrewdly anticipated, would be there. Nor was he mistaken; for all the four castaways were so much better this morning, notwithstanding the recent disturbance, that they had quitted their hammocks, with the intention of coming on deck.

Perhaps they had already begun to feel that necessity which so soon impresses the sick or ailing on board of ship—the expediency of getting well as soon as possible (especially in such a ship as the Hermione); for, after a time, there is but little sympathy to spare for useless hands, either fore or aft; "an overstrained sense of manliness being the characteristic of seafaring men, or rather of life on board ship."

Apart from these considerations, and being bodily better, the knowledge that Ethel Basset was only separated from him by a few planks worked a miracle upon Morley Ashton.

Their sodden and surf-beaten rags had all been thrown overboard, so Morley was attired from the wardrobe of Dr. Heriot; the others were supplied by the captain and Mr. Basset; and the appearance of Noah Gawthrop, when rigged out in a black swallow-tailed dress coat, belonging to the latter gentleman, with gilt buttons, and lappels of watered silk, an old crimson velvet waistcoat, an ample pair of dark tartan trowsers, and a sou'-wester of Mr. Quail's, was unique, and excited considerable speculation when he came on deck.

Forgetting his "landlubber-like toggery," with sailor-like instinct, Noah cast his eyes aloft, and critically surveyed all the rigging, and a smile, that puckered up the wrinkles of his old face, showed that the result of his scrutiny was satisfactory.

His remarkably ill-favoured visage was in no way improved by a patch of black sticking-plaster, with which Dr. Heriot had covered a cut on the bridge of his copper-coloured nose, the result of Hawkshaw's random blow in the matutinal row between decks.

Descending the break of the quarter-deck, Noah went forward, to get his breakfast with the crew, concerning whom the officers of the ship deemed it yet unwise to give him any warning.

He had considerably recovered his strength, and was eagerly welcomed by the seamen as he walked forward, and all gathered in a group about him in the break of the deck at the forecastle bunks, clamorous to hear his yarn about the loss of his ship—where she was from, where bound to, what she was loaded with, and so forth—to hear all about himself, and, though recorded last, not the least exciting topic on which they wished enlightenment, was the cry that had come from between decks in the first hour of the morning watch.

Noah, seated on the barrel of the windlass, with a tin mug of scalding hot coffee, together with a slice of salt junk, and Quaco's "plum-duff," after denouncing the tea and arrowroot of Joe the steward, proceeded to give, in his own fashion, a rambling narrative of all the recent events in which he had borne a part.

The words which he uttered did not reach the ear of Hawkshaw, in his lofty perch; but suddenly all eyes were simultaneously cast aloft to where he sat near the sling of the foreyard, and Noah threateningly shook his clenched hand at him, while a roar of mocking laughter from the crew—that bitter laughter which he so long dreaded—filled his heart with rage and spite, that he nearly fell from his seat among his tormentors.

For a time, it seemed as if all these villainous upturned faces—the thick, African nose and sausage-like lips of Quaco, the glittering eyes and olive face of Zuares Barradas, the hideous squat form of Sharkey—a wretch with the life of Manfredi to atone for—Badger, with his sunken orbs and great square jaw; Bolter, the unhealthy-looking Canadian, and all the rest—had been turned into mocking fiends, who would yet drive him to more desperate deeds, for he was now expelled, cast forth from among those with whom he had associated, without a prospect of return, or a hope of retrieving himself.

"Is not life altogether a long comedy," says some one, "with Fate for the stage-manager, and Passion, Inclination, Love, Hate, Revenge, Ambition, Avarice, by turns, in the prompter's box?"

Hawkshaw felt bitterly in his soul that his life had been a tragedy, in which the evil passions alone had played their parts by turns, and sometimes all together.

What would the last scene of that tragedy be?

"Hallo, foretop there!" cried Bill Badger, the tall, lantern-jawed, and odious Yankee. "Well, capting, I guess you're chawed up rayther. Thunder and lightning! come, ship with us in the little game we've got in hand. Jine us; you carn't do better now; and who knows but you may get your gal with the black shiners, after all?"

"El cuchillo primero! (My knife first)" said Zuares Barradas, touching the haft of his Albacete knife with ferocious significance.

Honest Noah opened his eyes very wide at these singular remarks, which were followed by another roar of brutal laughter. On this, Hawkshaw, to get, if possible, beyond the reach of their conversation, trembling in every limb with rage, and with a strange blindness coming over his sight, as the old clamorous ferocity gathered in his soul, while feeling that the mocking words had not been uttered in vain—as they suggested certain ideas of probable vengeance on his exposers—proceeded to climb farther up the rigging, until he perched himself on the fore-crosstrees, his past experience having made him seaman enough to achieve this.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE MEETING.

How shall I describe the almost mute meeting between Ethel Basset and Morley Ashton? or shall I omit it altogether?

Instinctively, and with proper good taste, all in the cabin left them to themselves for a time; and even Rose—the saucy and impulsive Rose—who looked just as Morley had last seen her when playing at croquet in Acton Chase, with her pretty straw hat, her green zouave jacket, and tiny bronzed Balmoral boots, after rushing back to give him one kiss more, tripped upstairs on deck to join the doctor.

Mr. Basset had managed to break the matter—the vast secret—to Ethel skilfully and gently, by saying that the wrecked men could afford some information concerning Morley Ashton; that they knew where he was, that one had seen him lately, that he was alive and well, and so forth. Thus there was no scene, no screaming, no fainting for joy, and certainly no dying of that pleasant emotion. Such a climax as the latter would have put the narrator of these events very much about indeed, for, our story being a true one, this little romantic portion of it dovetails with the rest—rather flatly, perhaps, because it is true.

For a time neither could exactly "realise" (to use a good Americanism) that they were reunited—Ethel, that Morley lived; Morley, that he should so suddenly find himself by the side of her whom he had been pursuing through the deep, reunited, and on board the Hermione, of London.

Again and again she fell upon his breast, repeating, in a voice that was almost breathless, but exquisitely touching:

"My darling—oh, my darling! can this be possible? Is this reality?"

Their poor hearts were too full to permit much to be said; nor would it be fair to them, or interesting to others, to rehearse all the little that they did say then. But how much had they to ask, to relate, to explain, and to deplore?

Morley had undergone so much, he had seen so many strange faces, and places too—Rio de Janeiro, with bay, mountains, and isles; Tristan d'Acunha, with its cliffs and mighty cone; Diego Alvarez, with its sea-elephants and fur seals; the Island of the Hermit, with its strange story of old Don Pedro de Barradas. He had encountered, moreover, so many gales of wind, the wreck, with all its contingent woes and horrors, and so forth, that Laurel Lodge, and Ethel's face, figure, and whole image had seemed ten years off—at least, ten years appeared to have elapsed since their sudden separation.

To poor Ethel the intervening blank had seemed greater, for Morley had lived with hope, while she had none; and, to understand and conceive her utter bewilderment, we must bear in mind all she had undergone.

The sudden and unaccountable disappearance of Morley, and the supposed mode of his death (for it was only supposed, after all), had occasioned a more bitter sorrow, a keener and more protracted agony, than she could have endured by weeping at his deathbed, and afterwards knowing that he was at rest in a grave she could see, where she might plant flowers and drop her tears.

To have seen him borne forth from Laurel Lodge to Acton churchyard, amid all the real and paid-for pageantry of woe, would have been actual contentment, when contrasted with all she had suffered—doubt, uncertainty, despair!

Oh, she felt how deeply she must loathe Hawkshaw as the author of all their woe!

But now Morley was beside her, with her hands in his, looking lovingly into her loving eyes, drinking in her murmured words, sitting close, very close, to her, so this reunion was as stunning and bewildering in its own way as their separation had been.

They were dearer to each other now by a thousand degrees than ever they were before, even after Morley's absence in Africa.

"It is good sometimes to be absent," says a graceful writer, truthfully; "better still to be dead, as regards our own imperfections and our equally imperfect friends. How they rise up and praise us for virtues we never possessed, and benignly pardon us for sins we never committed. How tender over our memories grow those who, living, worried our lives out, and might do so again, if we were alive, to-morrow."

They had none of those upbraiding thoughts to recall. Can it be reality, this happiness? was the uppermost idea in both their minds.

It was indeed Ethel whose head reclined upon his breast. She was changed since last they met at peaceful Laurel Lodge, among its rose-bowers, its giant laurels and stately sycamores; and yet how lovely she was—lovelier even now than then.

Long grieving had imparted a sweet Madonna-like sadness to the soft features; her cheeks were thin, and Morley's affectionate eye could see two white hairs amid the deep black braiding of the young girl's head; and he saw, too, that her broad, low brow, had an impress of care and sorrow—sorrow for him, even now, when her dark eyes were flashing through their tears of joy.

It was indeed she, that beloved one, whose name he had so dotingly murmured to himself a thousand times, in the lonely watches of the night, when treading the ship's deck under the sparkling stars of the tropics, when the glorious planets of the Southern Cross—fabled by the devout mariners of the old Spanish Argosies to be "a brooch taken from the breast of the blessed Madre de Dios"—looked close and nigh, so close as to cast the ship's shadow on the rolling waters.

It was she whom he had imagined in those wild dreams by day, when the dreams of the waking are wilder by far than those of the sleeper.

She was beside him again, and they were hand in hand as of old, eye bent on eye, lip meeting lip. Ethel, his own Ethel—after all they had undergone—was beside him, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it seemed indeed a dream, or like a set scene, the plot or conception of a sensational romance or playwright—a trafficker in plots, contrivances, and situations.

It was so, and truth proved stronger than fiction after all!

And so, forgetful of others, forgetful assuredly of breakfast, till Joe in the steerage and Quaco in the galley were in despair about the eggs and coffee, they would have sat till the sun that now shone through amber clouds so merrily ahead to the eastward had beamed his farewell rays in crimson through the stern-windows from the westward, had not Joe's bell, rung vigorously and impatiently for the third time, brought the whole party, including Mr. Foster, who had no sympathy whatever for lovers, and who felt famished, having had charge of the deck since 4 to 8 A.M.—the morning watch—and it was now half-past 10, alike by his appetite and the captain's chronometer.

All oblivious of the unhappy wretch who was "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy" aloft in the fore-crosstrees (where the swaying of the mast made the rolling of the ship seem so much greater than below) jovial indeed was the party which assembled at the sound of Joe's bell, and how curly-headed Joe's honest English face shone as he handed round coffee and tea, with whipped eggs for cream, or as he skipped about with hot water, and handed to the ladies preserves in tin cans, midshipmen's nuts and American biscuits in a silver bread-barge, a spotless white towel thrown over the sleeve of his round jacket the while, for Joe was something of a hybrid, half waiter and half seaman.

Under the cheering influence of Ethel's presence Morley's features soon became less haggard, and the keen, hawk-like expression of his dark eyes—an expression the result of suffering, danger, and of being long menaced by death—rapidly softened and passed away.

But with breakfast untasted, or feigning only to partake thereof, Ethel, pale and feverish, sat like one in a dream.

For this sudden restoration of Morley to life and to her, as it would seem from the bosom of the deep—from the greedy waves of that vast ocean which they had been traversing for more than three months—was more difficult of realisation than the horror of his disappearance and of his supposed dreadful death.

But she, and Rose too, seemed so forgetful of every one present, save Morley, that worthy young Dr. Leslie Heriot, F.R.C.S.E., actually envied him—envied the earlier intimacy he could claim with these two charming sisters, and felt almost jealous of the deep interest they evinced for our poor waif of the sea.

"And so you are indeed Miss Ethel Basset?" said Tom Bartelot, surveying the lovely girl with honest admiration and kindliness, when he was introduced to her.

"I am, sir," replied Ethel, smiling at his manner; "and a very old friend of Mr. Ashton's."

"I can scarcely regret the loss of my ship, the poor Princess" said Tom, gallantly, "or my own suffering and misfortune, when I consider that all have been but the means to a happy end."

"Sir?" said Ethel, blushing a little, and looking down. "You mean——"

"That they have been the means of bringing you and my old chum and schoolfellow, Mr. Ashton, together again," continued Tom, blundering still more by his straightforward inferences.

"You are very kind, sir, in saying so," replied Ethel, as her colour came and went.

"That poor lad loves you as his very life," continued Tom, warming with his subject; "aye, far beyond it, for, when compared with you, he don't value it more than a bit of old rope-yarn! Many an hour has he walked the deck by my side, speaking of you, and praising you; and even when he didn't speak, by his silence and his sighs, I knew well enough that he was thinking all the deeper."

"My poor Morley?" said Ethel, who heard all this with joyous tears in her eyes.

As soon as they came on deck, Noah Gawthrop presented himself in his peculiar attire, the black dress-coat and crimson vest, and doffing his sou'-wester at the break of the quarter-deck, twitched his grizzled forelock, and beckoned Morley.

"Mr. Ashton," said he, in a stage whisper, "wot's this I hear forward among that rum lot in the fok'stle?"

"Really, Noah, I cannot say. What have you heard?"

"Why, sir, they says as your sweetheart, Miss Basset—she you were always raving about on the wreck—is aboard o' this here craft."

"Yes, Noah, she is," replied Morley, laughing.

"Is that dainty little 'un her?"

"Which?"

"She with the pork-pie hat, red stockings, and red cheeks, the jigamaree jacket, and crinnyline?" said Noah.

"No; the taller lady."

"Smite my timbers! A regular-built stunner! Wot a wonderful coinsiddins!—wot a cannondrum! as the player chaps say, when they go bouncing about to the fiddles and blue fire!"

"It is destiny, Noah."

"Jest wot they says too! Well, I have given over sweethearting now; but I have shared my pay with many o' that sort o' ware in my time. The best of 'em all—here's her photograff done in gunpowder by the cook's mate of the Haurora, as we were a working out of the harbour of Odessa. Many a mouthful of salt-water I've swallowed, and many a whistling Dick I've heard since that was done," said Noah, pointing to the tattooing visible on his breast when his check shirt was open. "But won't you introdooce me as an old shipmate? 'Mornin' marm, 'mornin'," he added, sweeping the deck with his sou'-wester, as Ethel came frankly forward; "I'm one o' them as took Mr. Ashton off the cliffs, and sailed with him to Rio Janairey, in South 'Meriky, in the old Princess as was."

"Indeed—oh, I am most happy to see you, sir," replied Ethel.

"Call me Noah, marm—Noah Gawthrop; I ain't used to being sir'd," said he, smoothing down his gray hair.

"Well, my good friend Noah," said Ethel, her eyes beaming, as she presented her little white hand to Gawthrop, who looked at his own hard palm, rubbed it well on his trousers as if to clean it, and then shook hers gently and kindly, not crushing it up as the tars do invariably in the play.

"Such a dear old thing it is!" said Rose, laughing, as she observed this interview.

"I've made a man of him for you, Miss Ethel—I knows your name, you see; one couldn't be long with Mr. Ashton, keeping watch and watch, without finding out that—but I have made a man of him for you, marm. He wasn't worth a tobacco-stopper at first; but I've taught him to becket a royal, and send it down, yard and all, in a stiff topgallant breeze, or a regular squall; to slush a mast from the truck-head downward; to haul out to leeward when on the yard-arm, and if that ain't summut towards making him a good husband for you, and one as will, through the voyage of life, keep a firm hand on your rudder, and trim you nicely by the starn, I don't know wot is."

Noah's praises and rough congratulations were unintelligible to Ethel; but as they were calculated to excite laughter, and as some of his adjectives applicable to the "shark up aloft in the fore-cross-trees" were neither elegant nor euphonious, he was speedily sent forward by Tom Bartelot.

Rose, perceiving that Ethel was deadly pale, for the events of the morning proved rather too much for her strength, took her below for a little time, by Mr. Basset's suggestion. Morley affectionately, and tenderly handed her down the companion-stair—not a glance of his the while, not an emotion or movement being unnoticed by Hawkshaw, who, like a hawk, or rather like a tree-tiger robbed of his prey, was still perched alone in the fore-crosstrees.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CORPSE-LICHT.

As Morley turned away from the companion, he was confronted by his old friend Morrison, the mate of the defunct Princess. The Scotsman's honest face was radiant with pleasure, and grasping Morley's hand, he congratulated him warmly on the sudden change that a few hours had made in all his plans and prospects.

"No use in thinking of Tasmania now, or calculating the chances of finding a ship for the Isle of France, and all that, Mr. Ashton, eh?" said Morrison, laughing.

"Thank Heaven, no," said Morley, as they descended the break of the quarter-deck, and went to windward, near the main-rigging; "so great has been the alteration in all our affairs, that I can scarcely believe I was the poor doomed wretch of a few hours ago. Another night on that wreck would have seen us all dead men, Morrison."

Then Morley thought how strange it would have been if the ship, with Ethel on board, had passed the wreck, on board of which he was lying dead, and there was no voice to inform them of his fate, and the terrible mystery involving it.

"And you will be getting married now, Mr. Ashton," said Morrison, after a pause.

"Married!" repeated Morley, with astonishment; "where—where—here upon the open sea?"

"No; but when we are all landed at the Mauritius, where I shall have to look out for another ship, and, perhaps, may have to work my way home before the mast, for home to Scotland I must get somehow; and before the mast——"

"You shall never go in that fashion, Morrison, if I can help it; but as for my being married to Miss Basset"—Morley felt his cheek flush and his heart flutter at the thought—"that is an event which is somewhat distant yet, and must be so, till fortune—the old story—smiles on me."

"That I am sorry to hear," replied the Scotsman; "what says poor Robbie Burns, in one of the sweetest of his songs?—

"'Oh, why should Fate sic pleasure have,
    Life's dearest bonds untwining?
And why sae sweet a flower as love
    Depend on fortune's shining?'

Well, Mr. Ashton, hap what may, though our path in life and our homes will aye be far apart, I'll never forget the days we have spent together; and miserable enough some of them have been latterly," continued Morrison, who was a warm-hearted and impulsive fellow, and whose keen gray eyes grew moist as he spoke; "and so, as I said, hap what may, you shall always have the best wishes of poor Bill Morrison, though a sailor has seldom more to give, unless it be a quid from his tobacco-box, or a share of his grog on pay-day."

"Fortune may go and hang herself," said Morley; "she has never favoured me till now."

"Perhaps she thought such a good-looking fellow might be left to shift for himself," replied Morrison, laughing. "I once heard the song I have just quoted sung by a girl, whose story was a very strange one. She was separated from her lover by adverse circumstances, and though they never met again in life, they repose now in the same grave."

"Another of your melancholy yarns, Bill?"

"Well, it isn't lively. Shall I tell it to you?"

"Yes, please. Miss Basset is still below."

"I had entered on board the Clyde, a Greenock ship bound for Tasmania. I was but a third mate then, and that post, you know, is only a trifle better than being before the mast. She had several emigrants, and among them was a man named Udny, with his wife and a daughter whom I heard them call Hester.

"There was with them a good-looking young fellow from the shore, a shepherd apparently, for he wore a checked tweed suit with a Border plaid, and a broad blue bonnet. He was evidently not going the voyage; but he continued to hover about Hester Udny with a sad and dreary expression of face, and I could see that the girl's eyes were red and sore with weeping.

"She was a bonnie, fair-haired Scotch lassie. That the pair were lovers we could all see, and we knew that they were about to be separated for ever, perhaps, as her parents, poor and expatriated cotters, were going to find a new home in Tasmania. The lad was poorer still, and had to remain behind in the old country.

"My heart bled for them, and from time to time I could not restrain the inclination to observe them, as they sat, hand in hand, oblivious of the noisy throng about them, and the coarse jests of the cargo-puddlers, dock-porters, and especially of the sailors, each of whom volunteered to replace her sweetheart on the voyage.

"Twilight came on as we began to cast off the warps, and were towed down the river by a tug-steamer, so quickly, that the lights of Greenock soon twinkled out amid the haze and smoke astern.

"The sun had set, but the red flush of the departed day lingered brightly beyond the dark peaks of the Argyleshire mountains that look down on the Gairloch, the Holy Loch, so solemn and still, and many another place that I can see in memory yet, and that I often saw in dreams when we were floating on the wreck.

"The lad was to go back, among a few other shore people, in the tug-steamer. I heard the girl sobbing as if her heart would break when she heard the order given for them to quit the ship, as we were preparing to cast off the towline and loosening the topsails out of the bunt. I was sent forward with a gang to cat and fish the best bower anchor, and hoist it over the bows on board. When again I went aft, sail had been made on the ship; the tug-steamer had disappeared in the obscurity astern, and the sad girl was sitting alone, with her eyes fixed on the lights that glistened in the castle of Dumbarton.

"We had been for some days at sea before the girl came on deck. She looked pale, wan, and thin—worn almost to a shadow with mental suffering and sea-sickness; and the close atmosphere of a crowded steerage was as poison to one accustomed from infancy to the green lanes and wooded hills of Cydesdale. All pitied her forlorn appearance, and even the roughest sailor did not jest with her now.

"One evening she remained longer on deck than usual. I had the wheel; the ship was running before the wind with topgallant-sails, lower and topmast stun'sails set. The air was mild and the stars shone clearly and brightly amid amber to the westward and the blue in the zenith.

"With her head muffled in a plaid, Hester Udny was seated near me; but I had my attention mostly fixed upon the binnacle. There was silence fore and aft, and silence on the sea, when I heard the poor lassie singing to herself in a sweet, low voice, that song of Burns', and the notes became full of pathos fit the lines:

"'Oh why should Fate sic pleasure have,
    Life's dearest bonds untwining?
And why sae sweet a flower as love
    Depend on fortune's shining?'

"Suddenly she uttered a cry, and springing to me, grasped my arm. Her plaid or shawl had fallen back, and her fine golden-coloured hair was all in disorder; her eyes, which were a deep blue, were unnaturally bright and dilated, and their gaze was fixed wildly upon a part of the deck just aft the mainmast.

"'Sailor—sailor; oh, man, man, do you see that?' she asked, in tones of terror.

"'What?' said I.

"'A flame rising up through the deck, and growing higher every moment.'

"'Flame?' I repeated; 'there is no flame.'

"'Fire—it is not fire; it is the figure of a man—head, shoulders, arms, and hands—flame, all flame, pale blue, wavering, and indistinct!'

"'Nonsense, lassie, you are demented,' said I.

"'And you don't see it, sailor—you don't see it?' she continued, wildly.

"'No, my poor lassie,' said I; 'your eyesight must deceive you.'

"'Oh, heaven!' she shrieked, in a voice that brought all who were below tumbling up the hatches as if the ship were going down. 'Can I be going mad? It is like the figure of my Willie!'

"She fell senseless on the deck, and was carried below.

"This alleged apparition caused great speculation, and, as we had several emigrants from the Western Highlands on board, no small degree of terror, so that part of the deck abaft the mainmast was always watched narrowly and suspiciously; but neither flame nor figure saw we, though Hester afterwards asserted that one of the watch, who heard her cry, and hastened to assist her, passed through the figure, which wavered as he did so, but again resumed its luminous form.

"A fortnight elapsed before she was brought on deck again; and I must own to being shocked at the change in her appearance. Her keen blue eyes seemed unnaturally large and sunken, with dark rings round them, and her poor, thin, transparent hands trembled as she muffled her plaid or shawl over her head, when the watch on deck hastened to make a comfortable seat of old sails for her under the lee of the bulwark.

"Fearing a repetition of what had occurred before, her father and mother insisted on taking her below when twilight approached; but, urged by some undefinable feeling or emotion, she lingered longer than she should have done.

"We were now in latitudes where the sun sets quickly, the dusk comes on as rapidly, and heavily falls the dew.

"Hester Udny, pale as a spectre, was soon observed to fix her eyes upon that portion of the deck abaft the mainmast where she had seen the apparition, with a wild, but steady and deliberate gaze, as if fascinated; and then, in faint and tremulous accents, she declared that the figure of flame was again visible, pale and luminous, sometimes turning from amber to blue, and becoming hazy; that beyond it, or through it, she could see the line of the ship's bulwark, and the shrouds of the mainmast, as if it was transparent.

"To undeceive her, the captain passed and repassed the place, going each time, as she said, amid her cries, completely through the figure, unsinged, unhurt, and all unconscious that he was doing so.

"She swooned, and was carried below again.

"What added greatly to the strangeness of this phenomenon was the circumstance that some of the crew, when standing over the spot where the spectre was alleged to appear, were seized with giddiness, strange qualms, and even sickness, alike by day or night, and were ridiculed by those of a less nervous temperament, who never felt any such sensations, as 'green-horns' and 'fanciful lubbers.'

"Hester Udny never came on deck again—alive, at least.

"She remained in bed during the remainder of our voyage, evidently in a rapid decline, and on the day when we made the south-west cape of Van Diemen's Land—a high, bold, and rocky promontory—she expired.

"We were soon within six miles of the land, and her parents begged so hard that they might be permitted to bury the poor girl ashore, that our skipper acceded to their request. Assisted by the sailmaker, they wrapped her up in blankets, and her body was placed on a grating along the thwarts of the long-boat amidships, with a union-jack spread over it. No other pall had we, nor could we have found a better for a heart so true as that poor lassie once possessed; and there she lay when we entered the mouth of the Derwent river, and worked against a head wind up D'Entrecasteaux's Channel.

"I see that I am tiring you, Morley, with this long yarn; but Miss Basset is still below, and the strangest part is yet to come.

"We got aground on the western side of the channel, but ran an anchor out, manned the capstan, and hove the ship off. At half-past nine that night we came to anchor in thirty-fathom water, off Hobart Town, fired a gun, and furled our canvas, with the ensign at our gaff-peak half hoisted, to show that death had boarded us before the harpies of the custom-house.

"By daybreak next day I was ordered with a gang to prepare for breaking bulk, and proceeded to unship the main-hatch prior to starting the cargo.

"On removing a bale or two, and a few casks, how great was our horror to find, just abaft the mainmast, and under that portion of the deck where Hester Udny had twice seen the figure of flame—a figure perhaps always there, though invisible to us—the skeleton of a man, standing quite erect against the after-bulkhead!

"He was dressed in a gray tweed suit, with a blue bonnet, surmounted by a red tuft, and a checked Border plaid was over his right shoulder. All the flesh had dried upon his bones, so that his clothes hung loosely on him. A few blackened shillings, and a mouldy letter or two, were found in his pockets, so we at once supposed that, being unable to pay his passage, the poor fellow had secreted himself in the hold, little knowing how the cargo would be screwed and stowed up to the beams, and how hermetically the hatches would be closed by battens, tarpaulins, and iron bands; and thus he had perished miserably, unheard, unseen, and unknown—perished of suffocation, and remained there until he dried into a veritable white mummy.

"Our commiseration was greatly increased when we found that the mouldy green letters were written by Hester Udny, and in the poor stowaway her parents recognised her lover, Willie, the lad whom we had all seen hovering about her on the night we hauled out from Greenock to drop down the Clyde.

"They were buried ashore, these two ill-starred and unfortunate lovers, in the burying-ground of the big brick church of Hobart Town, and the whole ship's company attended the funeral. Jack's a rough fellow, Mr. Ashton, but I can assure you that, as we lowered their two plain black coffins into their deep grave, side by side, with a few fathoms of line, there was not a dry eye among us.

"And some of the roughest patted the old father on the back, as he stood dreamily at the head of his daughter's grave, in that far foreign land—sae far frae the Hills o' Campsie, and wondering if it could a' be true, and that she was lying there, while tears streamed down his cheeks, and his white hair waved i' the wind under his auld blue bonnet."

It was a peculiarity of Morrison's, that whenever he became interested, or perhaps more perfectly natural, he always slid into his old Scottish vernacular.

"This is a sad story, Morrison; but the luminous figure which the girl saw—how the deuce do you account for that? She was out of her mind, of course?"

"Out of her mind! not at all!" responded the philosophical Scot; "she was of a delicate temperament, and in a highly nervous and sensitive state, thus she may or must have seen that which was invisible to us of a rougher texture—the gaseous light proceeding from the fermentation, putrescence, and decay of the body beneath the deck—in short, that which we call in Scotland a corpse-Kent." *

* Concerning such appearances, see Baron von Reichenbach's work on the "Dynamics of Magnetism, Electricity," &c. &c., with notes thereto, by Dr. John Ashburner.

But now to return to our own story.

A long consultation ensued concerning what was to be done with Cramply Hawkshaw, and the conclusion come to was simply that he should be kept in the seclusion, or "Coventry," enjoined by Captain Phillips, till the vessel reached the Isle of France; and Morley gave a species of parole, that he would studiously avoid, nor seek in any way to punish him for the outrage he had formerly committed, or that which he had latterly attempted.

So the first day of Morley's re-union with his friends passed merrily and happily away.

In honour of the event, Mr. Basset had a case containing some of his favourite Marcobrumier and sparkling hock hoisted out of the store-room, and in the cabin that night the wine went round so freely, that Captain Phillips's merry eyes shone in his head, Tom Bartelot came out in his favourite drinking-song, and poor Mr. Quail, all unused to such beverages, when he went up to relieve the deck, at eight bells, saw two wheels and two steersmen, and the Hermione, tearing through the sea with six masts, and at least seven-and-twenty crossyards upon her.

As it came on to blow about midnight, a reef was taken in the topsails, and forgetting the evil projects broached by his crew on this occasion Captain Phillips gave a double allowance of grog to the watch, with pots of hot coffee to those who preferred them—kindness thrown away, as it proved in the sequel.

Now that our hero and heroine are safely re-united on board the very ship in which they were originally to have sailed together, the reader who is versed in novel-lore may suppose that nothing remains but for Mr. Basset to bestow his paternal benediction no them in the true fashion of the "heavy father," and for Hawkshaw, either at once to be forgiven, no promising to be a good boy for the future, or to receive condign punishment.

But, unfortunately, our story is not fictitious, so it ends not here.

Morley has escaped death, and is again seated by the side of Ethel Basset, gazing into her quiet, deep, and loving eyes as if he could do so for ever, and never, never weary, of course; but storms as yet unthought of, unheard and unseen, are ahead.

The good ship Hermione lies bravely to her course, now east and by north: but she carries with her the growing elements of discord, crime, and misery.