Once fairly clear of the point, Carera put his helm up, and away we went, with a flowing sheet, upon a north-west by west course; arriving off Mangle Point about noon. From thence we began to haul somewhat off from the land, the wind drawing further aft and freshening somewhat as we did so; so that by sunset the lively little craft had brought Lucrecia Point fairly on her larboard beam. As the sun went down the wind manifested a disposition to drop; and for a couple of hours we crept along at a speed of scarcely five knots; but it breezed up again just after the first watch came on deck; and by two bells we were smoking through it faster than I had ever before seen the craft travel. In accordance with the plan which Courtenay and I had arranged, we took the tiller between us during the whole of the first watch, the two hands whose places we had taken coolly going below and turning in. When the watch was called at midnight we felt that we had done enough for our purpose, so we retired below and spent the remainder of the night in our bunks.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

At daybreak next morning we were awakened by a terrific hubbub overhead, and going on deck to ascertain what was the matter we found that the felucca, having been allowed to draw in too close with the land during the night, was becalmed off Guajaba Island, whilst a sail, some nine miles distant in the offing—evidently a British man-of-war from the cut of her canvas, and apparently a frigate from her size—was heading straight for us, close-hauled on the larboard tack, with a rattling breeze, as we could see by the way she was laying over to it and the rapidity with which her sails rose above the horizon. There could be no doubt that they had seen us with the first approach of daylight and were determined to give us an overhaul, hence the confusion which had aroused us from our peaceful slumbers. It was laughable to witness the agonised dismay with which the Spaniards viewed the approach of this craft, and to listen to the prayers, vows, and maledictions which issued indiscriminately from their lips as she swept relentlessly down toward us. They anticipated nothing less than the capture and destruction of the felucca, and the detention of themselves as prisoners, which catastrophe, bad enough in itself as it must have appeared to them, was doubtless rendered infinitely more disagreeable by the reflection that to this mishap must be added the total collapse of their pretty little plan for the betrayal of their friends the pirates, and the subsequent division of the spoil. And even to us the prospect was by no means inviting. It was true that here was a chance for us to rejoin our own countrymen, and so escape from the dilemma in which we foresaw that we should be placed after leaving the Conconil lagoons; but we were not altogether without hopes that we might in any case be able to escape from that dilemma; and having resolved to go through with the adventure we were now by no means disposed to have it nipped in the bud. We were consequently quite as averse to a visit from the frigate as was Carera himself, and we at once set our wits to work to see if it might not be possible to devise some means of escape. The breeze was blowing fresh to within a mile of where we lay, and I felt convinced that the frigate, with the way she had on her, would shoot far enough ahead, even after she had entered the calm belt, to reach us with her guns; it was therefore evident that whatever was to be done would have to be done quickly, if it was to be of any use at all. I looked around and saw, by the colour of the water, that there was a shoal at no great distance inshore of us. I called Carera aft and said to him:

"Look here, Carera, do you happen to know this coast pretty well?"

"Every inch of it, senor," was the reply.

"I see there is shoal water over there," said I, indicating the direction with a nod of the head. "Now, what is to hinder you from rigging out your sweeps and sweeping the felucca into such shallow water as will prevent the frigate yonder from approaching you near enough to reach you with her guns? The Pinta is in light trim, and with all hands at the sweeps you ought to be able to move her pretty smartly through the water. And even should the frigate send her boats after us, we might be able to keep out of their way until the breeze comes."

"Excellent, senor!" he exclaimed rapturously. "I had never thought of that. Ah, it is you gentlemen of the navy who, after all, have the ideas! Out sweeps, forward there!" he continued; "we will escape that accursed Englishman yet."

The crew, aroused by the hopeful tone in which Carera spoke, scrambled up off their knees, and rigging out the sweeps soon had the little craft heading direct for the shore and moving through the water at the rate of some four knots. The frigate seeing this hoisted her ensign and fired a gun as a signal for us to heave to, of which we took not the slightest notice. I placed myself at the tiller, Carera took up a position on the stem-head, conning the felucca, and Courtenay devoted all his energies to the encouragement of the men as they laboured at the sweeps. Meanwhile, the breeze was gradually creeping nearer to us every minute, which, whilst an advantage in so far as it lessened the time during which the men would have to toil at the sweeps, was more than counterbalanced by the disagreeable fact that it would enable the frigate to approach so much the nearer to us before she in her turn became becalmed.

At length the noble craft shot across the outer boundary of the calm belt, and the instant that her canvas flapped to the masts her helm was gently ported until she headed straight for us, when another gun was fired; and before the smoke had cleared away she had swept round until her whole broadside—numbering eighteen guns—was bearing upon us.

"Now," shouted Courtenay, "look out for squalls!"

The words had scarcely left his lips when bang! went another gun, and we saw the shot come skipping and ricochetting across the glassy surface of the water straight toward us, ploughing up long steamy jets of spray at every bound, and finally, with a skurrying splash, disappearing about a dozen yards astern of us. After this there was a pause of about half a minute, apparently to see whether we were really foolhardy enough to persist in attempting our escape—and also, probably, to give the muzzles of their guns a little more elevation—when, seeing that the sweeps were still kept steadily going, she let fly her whole broadside at us with a rattling crash, which caused the Spaniards with one accord to let go their hold upon the sweeps and drop flat on their faces on the deck. Another moment and the shot came hurtling about us, some overhead and a very fair dose on each side of the little craft, so close too that the spray flashed in over the deck in a regular shower, whilst one shot came crashing in through the taffrail, flying close past me where I was standing at the tiller, smashing through the head of the companion and then flying out over the bows, passing through the sail on its way and missing Carera's head by a hair's-breadth.

"Eighteen-pounders, by the powers!" ejaculated Courtenay, turning to me. "A narrow squeak that for you, old boy? Now, then, my hearties," to the Spaniards, "tail on to those sweeps again, and look sharp about it. Remember, if we are caught away goes your chance of making a fortune out of friend Giuseppe yonder."

This suggestion aroused anew their courage, or their cupidity, and with a shout they sprang once more to their feet and to the sweeps.

Meanwhile, the breeze had crept in until it had overtaken the frigate, which at once filled on the starboard tack, keeping her luff until she had gathered good way, when she squared away and once more came booming into the calm belt, nearing us almost half a mile by this manoeuvre.

"It is no good, excellencies; we shall have to give up!" exclaimed Carera, coming aft. "We are now as close in as we dare go; and if that diabolical frigate fires another broadside at us she will blow us out of the water. Port your helm, senor—hard a-port! the coral is close under our keel."

"Hard a-port!" I responded. "But why give up, my good fellow? The frigate is as close now as she dare come to us. You may take my word for it that her captain will not run the risk of plumping his ship ashore for the sake of such an insignificant craft as the Pinta. Ha, look out! here comes another broadside."

How we escaped that second storm of shot I am sure I cannot tell, for we were now almost within point-blank range; but escape we did, although for a single instant the whole air around us seemed filled with iron, so thick and close did the shot fly about us. The sail was pierced in three places, but beyond that no harm was done.

"He is after us with the boats! He will waste no more powder and shot upon us," exclaimed Courtenay; and sure enough on looking astern I saw two boats just dropping into the water.

"We must give up—we must give up," cried our crew as they saw this; and leaving their sweeps they came aft in a body with the request that Carera would hoist the Spanish ensign and haul it down again in token of our surrender.

"No, no," I exclaimed; "see how the breeze is creeping down to us; it will be here as soon as the boats—or sooner, if you stick to the sweeps—and then I will engage that we scrape clear somehow. Is there no place, Carera, that we can run into, and so dodge the frigate! We can laugh at the boats if we once get the breeze."

"Place! of course there is!" exclaimed the skipper, his courage again reviving; "there is the Boca de Guajaba, not half a mile from us on our larboard bow. Once in there we can run up at the back of Romano—I know the channel—and so effectually give the frigate the slip. Back to your sweeps, children! we will never yield until we are obliged."

Again the crew manned the sweeps, and again—animated by another judicious reminder from Courtenay of the treasure awaiting them in the Conconil lagoons—they bent their backs and lashed the water into foam as they gathered way upon the felucca; and once more Carera went forward to con the craft through the dangerous channel we were now fast approaching. Meanwhile the two boats—a gig and a cutter—were tearing after us, going two feet to our one, and evidently quite alive to the fact that, unless they kept ahead of the breeze and reached us before it, we still stood a fair chance of escape.

Presently a narrow opening revealed itself in the shore about a quarter of a mile away, among the trees which clustered close to the water's edge; and Carera, directing my attention to it, informed me that was the channel. The surf was breaking heavily all along the shore, and to attempt a passage through it seemed, from the point of observation we then occupied, to be simply courting destruction. I said nothing, however, trusting in Carera's assertion that he knew the place, and presently a narrow band of unbroken water appeared in the midst of the foam, toward which a minute later the felucca was headed.

The boats were now closing with us fast, the gig, which was leading, being within about three cables' length of us, whilst the cutter was not more than fifty feet astern of her. Three or four minutes at most would suffice to bring them alongside of us, fast as we were moving through the water, unless the breeze came to our aid. The sea was ruffled all astern of them, and a cat's-paw now and then would come stealing along the glassy surface between us and them, but so far they had managed to keep ahead of the breeze. The measured roll of the oars in their rowlocks could now be distinctly heard and the sound reaching the ears of the Spaniards made them strain and tug at the sweeps more desperately than ever, Courtenay not only cheering them on but now actually tailing on to a sweep which the lad Francisco was manfully tugging away at with the best of them. The perspiration was pouring off the poor fellows' faces and bare arms in streams, but they still worked away, looking eagerly at me every time I shot a hasty glance astern, as if anxious to gather from my expressive countenance what hopes of escape still remained.

At length we reached the mouth of the channel, and I dared no longer withdraw my eyes for a single instant from Carera. The passage was exceedingly narrow, so confined, indeed, that a man might have leaped from either rail into the seething breakers on each side of us. The little craft bobbed and pitched as she glided into the troubled water, the huge sail rattled and flapped, and we seemed to visibly lose way. At this juncture a voice hailed us in execrably bad Spanish from the gig astern, peremptorily exclaiming:

"Heave to, you rascally pack of piratical cut-throats, or I will fire into you!"

"Pull, men, pull!" I urged. "Here is the breeze close aboard of us."

At the same instant our great lateen sail swelled heavily out, wavered, jerked the sheet taut, and collapsed again. The Spaniards greeted the sight with a joyous shout, and, whereas they had hitherto been toiling in grimmest silence, they now burst out with mutual cries of encouragement and a jabber of congratulatory remarks which were almost instantly cut short by the crack of a musket, the ball of which clipped very neatly through the brim of my straw hat. Again the sail flapped, collapsed, flapped again, and then filled steadily out.

"Hurrah, lads!" I exclaimed. "Half a dozen more strokes with the sweeps and the breeze will fairly have got hold of us. See how the sheet tautens out!"

"In bow-oar, and stand by to heave your grapnel!" I heard a voice say in English close underneath our counter; and the next instant came the rattle of the oar as it was laid in upon the thwart. Courtenay too heard the words, and knowing well what they meant left his sweep and sprang aft.

"Give way, men, give way!" now came up from the boat. "Spring her, you sodjers, spring her, and take us within heaving distance, or they will get away from us yet. See how the witch is gathering way! Bend your backs, now; lift her! well pulled! another stroke—and another—that's your sort; now we travel—hang it, men, pull, can't ye! heave there, for'ard, and see if you can reach her."

Courtenay was crouching low behind the bulwarks on the watch for the grapnel, and in another second it came plump in over the taffrail. Before it had time to catch anywhere, however, my chum had pounced upon it, and, tossing it into the air just as the bowman in the boat was bringing a strain upon the chain, the instrument dropped overboard again.

"You lubberly rascal!" exclaimed the officer in charge of the gig, addressing the unfortunate bowman, "you shall get a couple of dozen at the gangway as soon as we get back to the ship for that. And if you miss next time I'll make it five dozen. We've lost a good fathom of distance through your confounded stupidity. Pull, men! D'ye mean to let the hooker slip through your fingers after all?"

Then a thought seemed suddenly to strike this exasperated individual; his boat was too close under our counter to enable him to use his own muskets, so he hailed the cutter and inquired if there was "no one in her clever enough to pick off that rascally Spaniard at the felucca's tiller?"

"Come," thought I, "this is pleasant! A pretty pass the service is coming to when a man is coolly fired upon by his own countrymen. However, let us hope the 'cutters' are as bad shots with the musket as the average of our blue-jackets!"

Just then crack! went a musket from the cutter, and I heard the thud of the bullet in the planking somewhere behind me.

"A miss is as good as a mile," thought I; whilst the lieutenant in the gig astern relieved his feelings by alternately anathematising the poor marksmanship of the 'cutters,' and urging his own crew to increased exertions. By this time, however, the breeze had fairly caught us; we were in smooth water, and slipping so rapidly through it that it was evident the sweeps were no longer rendering us the slightest effective service; whilst, from the more subdued sounds issuing from the pursuing gig, I could tell that we were distinctly drawing away from her; I therefore took it upon me to order the sweeps to be laid in, an order which was obeyed with the utmost alacrity. This action of ours seemed to inspire the gigs with renewed hope and they put on such a determined spurt that for the next ten minutes it was an even chance whether after all they would no catch us. They did gain upon us decidedly for the first five minutes of the spurt; but their desperate and long-continued exertions were now beginning to tell pretty severely upon the oarsmen, and by the end of that time it became evident that they were completely pumped out, for we rapidly ran away from them. The cutter, meanwhile, had been manfully following her lighter consort all this while, the midshipman in charge of her amusing himself by blazing away at me as fast as he could load and fire even after we had run out of range. Fortunately he was an outrageously poor shot, his first attempt being his best, so I escaped unhurt; but I inwardly vowed that if ever I happened to meet him in the future I would have my revenge by telling him pretty plainly what I thought of him as a marksman. At length, the felucca having distanced the gig about a mile, we saw both boats give up the chase and lay upon their oars; and a few minutes later they turned tail, and made their way slowly back toward the channel. We had escapee—so far.

Meanwhile, having passed safely through the narrow channel we found ourselves in an extensive lagoon, some ten miles wide, and so long that we had a clear horizon to the southward and eastward, whilst on our starboard hand was a cluster of perhaps a dozen islands, large and small, some almost awash, whilst others rose to a height of from fifty to sixty feet above the water's edge at their highest points, all of them being wooded right down to the water. To the northward and westward of us the lagoon narrowed down to about a mile in width, forming a sort of strait between the largest of the islands above- mentioned and a bold projecting promontory; and beyond this strait the horizon was again clear save for certain faint grey blots which our experienced eyes told us were the foliage crowning another group of islands. It was an enchanting prospect for a man to gaze upon; the broad sheet of water upon which we were sailing was perfectly smooth save for the slight ruffle of the breeze upon it; every spot of dry land, large or small, within sight of us, was completely hidden by the luxuriant tropical vegetation which flourished upon it, the foliage being of every conceivable shade of green, from the lightest to the darkest, and thickly besprinkled with flowers and blossoms of all the hues of the rainbow. Nor was animate life wanting to add its charm to the scene; for aquatic birds of various kinds were to be seen stalking solemnly about the shallows busily fishing, or skimming with slowly- flapping pinions close along the surface of the water; whilst, as we shot between two of the contiguous islands, butterflies of immense size and gorgeous colouring were distinctly visible flitting to and fro among the blossoms of the plants and trees; a flock of gaily painted parroquets, startled by our sudden appearance, took to flight with discordant screams; humming-birds hovered and darted here and there, their brilliant metallic-like plumage flashing in the sun so that they resembled animated gems; and lizards of various kinds, including an immense iguana, could be seen lying stretched out at full length on some far-reaching branch, basking in the broiling sun. It was all very beautiful; and I should have liked nothing better than to spend a week with my gun and sketch-book in so charming a spot, but this was of course impossible; and it was also impossible for me, posted as I still was at the tiller, to take more than a hasty glance now and then, for the water was extremely shallow everywhere but in the channel, which was so intricate that, with the fresh breeze then blowing, it taxed me to the full extent of my ability to follow Carera's quick motions and keep the little hooker from running bodily ashore with us.

This novel species of inland navigation lasted until four bells in the forenoon watch, by which time we had cleared the second group of islands. The channel then became wider, deeper, and less difficult to follow; the land receding on either hand so far that all details were lost; the trip consequently began to grow somewhat monotonous; so I resigned the tiller to Manuel, the mate, and joined Courtenay below for a quiet chat. At one o'clock Carera called down through the sky-light that we were about to make for the open sea again, whereupon we proceeded on deck to watch the passage of the felucca out through the northern channel. This was simply a pleasant repetition of our morning's experience for a run of about three miles; after which we found ourselves at sea again, indeed, but with still a very awkward passage of some nine miles to make over an extensive shoal before we could reach deep water. We had a most disagreeable time of it for the first half-hour, for, though we were under the lee of a couple of islands, a heavy swell was setting in from seaward, the white water was all round us in every direction, and a very sharp eye was needed at the con, and an equally quick hand at the tiller, to prevent the little craft from beating her bottom in on the coral. After that, however, the water gradually deepened; and about two o'clock, to everybody's intense relief, we found ourselves once more in open water, with no sign of the frigate, or indeed of a sail of any kind, anywhere within sight.

For the remainder of that day and during the ensuing night our course led us to the northward and westward close along the northern edge of the great shoal, dotted with its multitudinous cayos and cays, which commences some thirty miles to the eastward of the Boca de Guajaba, through which we had run to escape the frigate's boats, and extends right along the north-eastern coast of Cuba to its most northerly point, terminating at Maya Point at the entrance to Matanzas Bay. These cays lie so thickly scattered along the coast, and are so close to each other, that they afford innumerable places of shelter with snug anchorage for small craft; whilst, from the fact that they are all situated well within the outer limit of the shoal, they are unapproachable except by vessels of exceedingly light draught; I was therefore not at all surprised to learn from Carera that they were infested by a perfect nest of pirates, who, in feluccas and schooners of great speed and shallow draught of water, were wont to sally forth for a few days' cruise in the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahamas, to prey upon the shipping bound into and out of the Gulf of Mexico; returning to their depots after every successful raid, and landing their booty there, so that, in the event of their encountering a man-of-war, nothing of an incriminating character might be found on board them. I asked Carera whether he was never afraid that some of these free-and-easy gentlemen might some time or another take it into their heads to overhaul the Pinta, on the chance of her happening to have on board something worth taking; to which he replied, with a laugh, that he had no fear whatever of any such thing; the pirates always respected such traders as happened to be engaged in dealing with any of the fraternity, these traders having a means of making their characters known to any suspicious- looking craft which might happen to manifest a too curious interest in their movements. And, indeed, we had a verification of this statement that same evening, whilst we were lying becalmed off the Cristo cays; for a noble felucca, which we had sighted an hour or so before, came foaming down toward us, with sails furled and ten sweeps of a side lashing the glassy surface of the water into foam, evidently determined to know the why and the wherefore of our being there. Carera, seeing there was a chance of his being boarded, dived below and routed out a small square red flag, with a black diamond in the centre, which he hoisted at the end of the yard; whereupon the felucca swerved slightly from her course, and, passing close under our stern, inquired whither we were bound; to which Carera replied: "The Conconil lagoons," an answer which appeared to be perfectly satisfactory. This felucca was quite a formidable craft of her class, measuring, I should say, close upon two hundred tons. She was very low and very broad on the water—due, as I could distinctly see when she swept so closely past us, to the extreme shallowness of her hull; there was no scale on her stern-post to show her draught of water; but it could not have been more than eight feet, if as much; her water-lines were the finest I had ever seen, and she must have been a wonderfully smart vessel under canvas, judging from the ease and the speed with which her crew swept her through the water. There were fully sixty men on her roomy decks as she passed us—and possibly others below—as ruffianly-looking a set of wretches as I ever wish to see; and her armament consisted of eight long brass nines—four in each battery—with a long eighteen between her fore and main mast. She was rigged with three masts; and, from the great length of her graceful tapering yards, she must have been capable of showing an enormous spread of canvas to the breeze. With an eye to future business, I not only noted the direction in which she was steering, but also questioned Carera about her; but that individual was—or professed to be—totally unacquainted with her.

Next morning at daybreak we were aroused by Carera, who requested us to put in an appearance on deck as soon as possible, as we were off the mouth of the Barcos Channel and he wished to run in with the first of the sea-breeze. We accordingly dressed with all expedition and hurried on deck, to find ourselves becalmed off a cluster of low mangrove- covered islets, so numerous that the whole sea inshore of us seemed to be completely covered with them. A single glance sufficed to convince us that no more suitable spot than this for a pirate's head-quarters could well be found, for any attempt on the part of the uninitiated to penetrate the intricacies of these multitudinous cays must inevitably have resulted in failure. Channel there was none—so far as we could see—or rather, there were hundreds of them, each more hopelessly impracticable than the other, for there appeared to be only a very few feet of water in any of them. Had we been able to ascend to any such elevation as, say, a frigate's mast-head, it might indeed have been possible to pick out the true channel; but, viewed from the low deck of the felucca, they all appeared pretty much alike. That there was a channel, however, and that a fairly good one, Carera assured us, pointing out at the same time an island fully a mile in length, and lying about due east and west, which he informed us marked the western boundary of the entrance.

Soon afterwards the sea-breeze set in, and, squaring away before it, we ran straight for a tiny islet with a single tree upon it, which lay some distance within the mouth of the channel, and which had been brought exactly midway between the long island above-mentioned and a much smaller one about a quarter of a mile to the eastward of it. Courtenay now set to work to take soundings throughout the whole length of the channel, whilst I noted down upon a piece of paper the particulars and bearings of the numerous marks. The Barcos Channel itself was some two miles in length, as nearly as I could guess at it, curving slightly to the eastward from its entrance, and by no means difficult to navigate when once one had fairly hit off its mouth, but so narrow that a passage through it in either direction could only be accomplished with a leading wind. Once through this passage we found ourselves in an extensive sheet of water—an immense lagoon, in fact—which Carera informed me was known as Santa Clara Bay; and it is at the bottom of this bay that the Conconil lagoons, to which we were bound, is situated.

And here our difficulties may be said to have fairly commenced. The wide expanse of water upon which we were now sailing is exceedingly shallow, a fathom and a quarter of water being its average depth everywhere, except at its south-eastern extremity, where it dwindles down to one fathom only. The Pinta, from her exceedingly light draught, might, with careful management, have made a tolerably straight run of it from the inner extremity of the Barcos Channel to the entrance to the lagoons; but this of course would not do for us; a deeper, though very intricate passage to the last-named point existed, and it was of the utmost importance to us to have it pointed out to us; it was, in fact, supposed to be the chief object of our journey with Carera. Accordingly, away we went for it, stretching across the lagoon, now to one side, now to another; bearing away for a few yards, then hauling close to the wind; twisting and doubling like a hunted hare, and changing our course so rapidly that it was all I could do to jot down the various marks as they were pointed out to me. The distance to be traversed was, in a straight line, about ten miles, so Carera told me; but we must have passed over fully forty miles of ground in following the windings of this exasperating channel, for it was two o'clock in the afternoon when we reached the entrance to the Conconil lagoons. These lagoons extend about six miles in length, and vary in breadth from perhaps half a mile in their widest part, to less than a hundred feet at their narrowest. They run pretty nearly east and west and are formed by a remarkable spit, shaped like an inverted L, jutting out from the mainland, and some eight or nine islands of various sizes. Some of these islands stand fair in the middle of the lagoon, as regards its width, and where these occur the channel is exceedingly narrow, and consequently can be very easily defended. The lagoons, in fact, constitute a stronghold within a stronghold; and as we wound our way slowly along, the breeze coming to us only light and fitfully through the dense and lofty vegetation crowning the islands outside of us, my admiration for Signor Giuseppe's sagacity in selecting such a place of refuge grew momentarily more profound. At the same time I could not but think, as my gaze rested for a moment upon the black turbid water upon which we floated, whilst my offended nostrils sniffed the very unfragrant odours which it exhaled, that the possible unhealthiness of the place more than compensated for its exceeding safety in other respects. However, when we reached the head of the lagoon, I found, contrary to my expectations, that a very capital and apparently healthy site had been pitched upon for the depot at the higher extremity of the last lagoon—an irregular triangular-shaped piece of water about a mile long by half a mile wide, with four small islands pretty evenly distributed over its surface. The largest of these rose somewhat precipitously from the water's edge to a height of about fifty or sixty feet—quite high enough, at all events, to be above the level of the miasmatic fogs which gather on the surface of the water toward evening— and on the very summit of this island, deliciously embowered with noble trees, were placed the various buildings appertaining to the piratical community. A narrow strip of firm sandy beach fringed the island on its eastern side; and as we opened it out from behind a projecting point of land, we saw a fine smart-looking schooner hauled close in to it and hove down for repairs. We anchored about a quarter of a mile distant from her, in four fathoms of water; and as Courtenay joined me he made the gratifying announcement that he had never met with less than two and a half fathoms of water in all the soundings he had taken.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE CONCONIL LAGOONS.

No sooner was our anchor down than the boat was launched over the side; the felucca's hatches were whipped off, and Carera, diving below, drew forth from some mysterious recess in the little cabin a stout canvas bag containing the two hundred doubloons which he had brought with him for the purpose of trading, whilst the crew, including Courtenay and myself, who were appropriately rigged for the occasion, roused up out of the hold sundry bales of canvas and clothing, coils of rope, casks of provisions, and other etceteras which had been purchased on Giuseppe's account and to his especial order, and for which he would pay in booty. These articles were at once passed over the side into the boat, and as soon as she was loaded with as much as she could safely carry, Carera and a couple of his most trusted hands jumped into her and pulled ashore. As Courtenay and I were strangers, whilst all the other hands belonging to the felucca had frequently visited the place before and were pretty well known to the whole gang, it was deemed advisable that we should remain on board, so as to obviate as far as possible the propounding of perhaps awkward questions as to who and what we were, with the contingent probability of arousing suspicion in the minds of the pirates. To this arrangement we had no objection whatever to make, as Carera assured us there was nothing in the least likely to interest us on shore—nothing whatever, in fact, that we could not just as well see from the felucca's deck with the aid of a telescope. We therefore remained on board, busying ourselves by putting our notes into shape whilst everything was still fresh in our minds, and making as thorough an examination of the island, with the various buildings upon it, as was possible without running the risk of attracting attention. The latter part of our task was an easy one, there being only four buildings altogether on the island; the largest, a kind of general storehouse, being built upon the beach just above high-water mark, so as to be easy of access from the water; whilst the remaining three, consisting of a dwelling for Giuseppe and his principal officers, a long, rambling barrack-like structure for the men who might happen to be left on shore, and a cook-house, were all erected on the top of the hill. The schooner naturally attracted a great deal of attention. She was dismantled, all to her lower masts, and was hove right down on her beam-ends, so as to bring her keel out of the water, so that we could not see as much of her as we should have liked; but, judging of her size from the boats alongside, and the men working about her, we estimated her to measure about one hundred and fifty tons. Her bottom was turned in our direction, and the men were busily engaged in stripping off a quantity of her sheathing and removing several of her planks below the water- line, which, in conjunction with the fact that we detected what looked uncommonly like a couple of shot-holes through her bottom, led us to believe that she, like ourselves, had recently had a very narrow escape of being sunk. The position she was in afforded us an excellent opportunity of inspecting her lines, and I must say I never before saw any nearly so perfect. Looking at them from where we were, they seemed to be absolutely faultless; and as we critically examined them the conviction forced itself upon us that, in moderate weather and with not too much sea on, there was nothing flying British bunting in West Indian waters—or elsewhere, for that matter—which would stand the slightest chance of catching her.

After an absence of about an hour the felucca's boat came off again, without Carera, but loaded down to the gunwale with the most heterogeneous assortment of goods it is possible to imagine, including bales of silk and other valuable stuffs, casks of wine and spirits, and a considerable quantity of handsome silver plate; the latter alone being worth, according to my estimation, considerably more than Carera's bag of doubloons and the rest of his cargo to boot. These goods were passed on deck and from thence down into the hold; the remainder of our own small cargo was loaded into the boat, and away she went on shore again. When she came off the second time it was nearly sunset; Carera came with her, bringing off the remaining price of his barter, consisting of half a dozen bales of tobacco and fifty boxes of prime cigars. The rascal seemed thoroughly well pleased with the result of his bargaining, as indeed he very well might be, for he must have secured fully four times the value of the money and goods he had brought with him to the lagoons. He informed us that, if we had seen all we considered necessary to the successful issue of our projected expedition, he would be off again at daybreak next morning, as Giuseppe was in a most unamiable, and indeed dangerous temper, having been badly mauled a week previously by a British frigate—most probably the one which had manifested such a very marked interest in the Pinta's movements—and that he had only scraped clear of her and made good his escape at last by the happy accident of being close to shoal water, into which he had retreated, with his schooner half unrigged and seven eighteen-pound shot-holes through her sides and bottom, which he had inefficiently plugged with the utmost difficulty, reaching the lagoons at last in a water-logged and sinking condition. Carera further informed us that, by a lucky combination of circumstances, he had not only discovered the locality of but had actually been permitted to enter the pirates' treasure-house—a cellar hollowed out of the earth beneath Giuseppe's dwelling—and that there was a considerably larger accumulation of treasure in it than even he had imagined; and that, further, there was no time to be lost in organising the expedition against the pirates, as it had transpired that many of them were growing anxious to enjoy the fruit of their nefarious labours, and serious thoughts were entertained of a speedy general division of the spoil and dispersion of the gang. I may as well mention, en passant, that it appeared to be the fashion for everybody visiting the lagoons to speak of Giuseppe, whenever they had occasion to mention him, as "Captain Merlani," whilst within the limits of Santa Clara Bay. I have not the least idea why it was so, but such is the fact; and as the use of a man's Christian name seems to imply a closer degree of intimacy with, and personal friendship for, him than we could rightfully claim, I will, with the reader's kind permission, refer to him henceforward as "Merlani" The reason why I have not done so earlier in my story is, that it was not until our arrival within his territory, so to speak, that we became acquainted with the fellow's surname. This by the way.

As night closed down upon the lagoons with that rapidity which is peculiar to the tropics and the regions immediately adjacent thereto, our ears were assailed by that babel of sound which prevails with scarcely a moment's intermission all through the hours of darkness wherever there is a patch of land large enough to support a few trees with their almost invariable attendant undergrowth, and which emanates from the countless myriads of insects which find their home in the ground, the long grass, the foliage, and the bark of the trees, the chorus being swelled in the present instance by the cries of countless lizards—from the diminutive and harmless grass-lizard up to the alligator, the weird sounds uttered by the nocturnal birds which flitted on noiseless wing from bough to bough, and the rattling chirr of a whole army of frogs. And very soon, too, we discovered that we were in one of the favourite haunts of the mosquito, for the cabin lamp was scarcely lighted when the pests made their appearance below in absolute clouds, and so tormented us that we were fain to beat a hasty retreat to the deck, in the vain hope of avoiding them.

We had no sooner set foot on deck, however, than we felt almost thankful to the pertinacious little wretches for having driven us there, for a scene at once burst upon us of such singular and bewitching beauty as I certainly had never up to that time looked upon. The moon, nearly full, and tinted a pale but rich crimson by the atmosphere of miasmatic fog which overhung the lagoon, was just rising into view above the tree-tops and flinging a long tremulous trail of blood-red colour athwart the almost stagnant water. The trees near at hand stood up black as ebony, and motionless as if painted upon the deep soft violet of the cloudless sky, whilst, as they receded to the right and left, their forms gradually became merged with and lost in the fog, which floated not in one uniform mass but in wreaths of ever-changing and most fantastic shape, with their upper edges here and there delicately tinged in faintest rainbow hues as the slanting moonbeams fell upon them. Fireflies, visible only as tiny sparks of light, flitted and glanced and whirled hither and thither against the black shadows of the foliage, whilst the black water, so highly phosphorescent that every tiniest ripple was edged with its own individual and separate line of silvery fire, glowed and darkened, sparkled and flashed, and at times seemed to fairly throb with liquid lightning as the countless living creatures within it stirred its sleeping depths. So insignificant a disturbance even as the falling of a leaf into the water sufficed to evolve a slowly-widening circle of silver light, whilst a frog, a lizard, or a water-rat, making an aquatic excursion, revealed his form and presence much more distinctly than would have been the case at noonday.

Our attention, however, was soon distracted from this witching scene— the exquisite beauty of which is not to be described in mere words—by a noise of singing and shouting on Merlani's island. Presently a feeble flickering fame became visible on the sandy beach, which, quickly increasing in brilliancy, revealed the evident fact that a party of the buccaneers were intent upon a carouse. With the aid of a telescope we could see that these men, some twenty in number, had seated themselves round the fire—which they had probably kindled for the twofold purpose of providing themselves with light and smoking away the mosquitoes—and were industriously passing round a bulky jar, presumably containing spirits, from which, as it came round, each man scrupulously replenished his pannikin; the intervals not devoted to the more important business of drinking being occupied in the singing, or rather shouting, of ribald songs, in the performance of which every man's aim appeared to be to out-yell everybody else. This lasted for rather more than an hour, when a temporary lull occurred, and we were in hopes that the orgy was about over and that the hubbub had ceased for the night, when a large boat full of men was seen to be pulling off in our direction. I did not like the look of this at all; the idea of being boarded there in that out-of-the-way spot by a score of desperadoes, half crazy with drink, and, even at the best of times, ripe for any deed of diabolical mischief, was so uninviting that I suggested to Carera the advisability of at once arming all hands, so as to be in readiness for any emergency. I could see that Carera was even more discomposed than ourselves at the approach of the boat, but he would not for a moment listen to my proposal to arm the felucca's people, hastily explaining—and possibly he was right—that the display of weapons would be only too likely to further excite our coming visitors and lead to some overt act productive of a terrible disaster. He expressed the opinion—his teeth chattering with fear, meanwhile, to such an extent that he could scarcely articulate—that the visit would probably prove to be no more than a drunken frolic, and that if it were received and treated as such all would doubtless turn out well; but he very earnestly urged upon Courtenay and me the desirability of our retiring and keeping out of sight so long as our visitors remained on board, which I thought good enough advice to be acted upon, and we accordingly retreated below forthwith. At first sight this retreat of ours smacked a little, I will admit, of slinking off out of possible harm's way; but after all what good could we have done by remaining on deck? And having thus far carried our somewhat foolhardy adventure prosperously through, it was scarcely worth while to endanger its ultimate success by courting risks in which the remarks or questions of a drunken desperado might at any moment involve us.

We had barely made good our retreat when the boat arrived alongside, and her occupants were in another moment in possession of the felucca's deck. A torrent of ribald banter and raillery—of the sort which, coming from a drunken man, is expected to be received as jovial humour, but which a chance word or inadvertent glance of misappreciation may in a moment cause to be exchanged for expressions and acts of the most diabolical ferocity—was at once discharged by these ruffians at Carera and his crew, who, anxious to propitiate their most unwelcome visitors, did their best to retort in kind; and for the next twenty minutes or so the little vessel fairly rang with the most foul, blasphemous, and blood-curdling language it has ever been my misfortune to listen to. Fortunately for us our knowledge of the Spanish tongue, though it had proved sufficiently thorough to deceive Carera and his crew into the belief that we were their fellow-countrymen, was not equal to the comprehension of one-half of the utterances to which we were just then compelled to listen, or I have no doubt we should have been even more thoroughly shocked and disgusted than we were.

And here let me break the thread of my story for a moment to speak an earnest word of kindly caution to my youthful readers. Avoid the use of foul, obscene, or blasphemous language, my lads, as you would avoid the most deadly pestilence. I am grieved to notice that it is sometimes the fashion among lads, ay, even in some cases those of respectable parentage, to freely garnish, as they think, their conversation habitually with language of the most vile and disgusting description. They perhaps think it manly to do so, and imagine that a bold reckless style of conversation, freely besprinkled with obscenity and profanity, will excite admiration. But if they think this they are making as great and grievous a mistake as they are ever likely to make in the whole course of their lives. The feeling excited is not admiration; it is utter loathing and disgust. Can you think of any man the victim of this horrible vice, for whom you entertain the smallest spark of admiration or respect? Would you like to hear such words from the lips of your own father or mother, your brother or your sister? Or would you like either of them to hear you making use of such language? After all, who and what are the men who thus habitually indulge in obscenity and profanity? Are they not the vicious and disreputable, the brutal drunken ruffians, the scum of the slums, the lowest of the low, the very outcasts and pariahs of society? And is it for one of these that you would like to be mistaken? is it with this repulsive brotherhood that you would choose to ally yourself? Hardly, I would fain hope. No, boys, it is not manly—still less is it gentlemanly—to be ribald and profane. No true gentleman—let his position in life be what it may—ever degrades himself by the use of foul language, and don't you do it, unless you are anxious to gain for yourself the loathing and utter contempt of your fellows.

To resume. In this horrible interchange of filthy banter the pirates appeared to have forgotten, for the time being, the object of their trip off to the felucca, but at length one of them exclaimed, with a profusion of oaths, that Carera had secured an unfair advantage of them during the afternoon's bartering transactions, and that they had come off to demand a cask of rum with which to square the account Carera, on his part, tried to laugh off the whole affair as an excellent joke, and proposed to mix them a tub of grog there and then as an appropriate finish to it; but this would by no means satisfy the ruffians, who were firm in their demands. So at length, recognising that longer refusal would prove dangerous, he reluctantly ordered the hatches to be lifted. The cask of rum was hoisted out and lowered into the boat, the pirates tumbled in after it, and, finally, with more profanity mingled with snatches of sea-songs, which were bellowed forth at the top of their voices in the style usual with half-tipsy men, away they went for the shore, followed by the smothered imprecations of Carera and his fervent prayers that the boat might capsize and drown them all.

This visit had evidently discomposed Carera's nerves to a very considerable extent, for the boat was no sooner fairly away from the felucca's side than our host presented himself in the cabin, to inform us that, the land-breeze having sprung up and the night being fine and clear, he proposed to go to sea at once instead of waiting until morning. We accordingly went on deck again instead of turning in, as had been our original intention; and a few minutes later—the boat being by this time close to the beach, and so thoroughly within the circle of the brilliant firelight that her occupants were not likely to observe our movements—the canvas was loosed and all hands went cheerily to work to get the anchor. This, the water being shallow, was not a long job, and a quarter of an hour later we were stealing noiselessly away down the lagoon; the land-breeze, which was rustling cheerily among the tree- tops, just reaching us in a languid zephyr, mingled now and again with fitful puffs, which sent us along at a speed of about three knots.

It was now nearly ten o'clock at night; the moon rode high in the heavens, which were flecked here and there by small patches of fleecy scurrying cloud; the fog had drifted away, leaving the atmosphere delightfully pure and clear, so that, narrow as was the channel down which we were winding our way, we had no difficulty in steering clear of all obstruction. As we crept down the lagoon we gradually got a truer breeze and more of it, so that by midnight we found ourselves just passing out of the Conconil lagoons and entering Santa Clara Bay.

We now had a fine rattling breeze, which we expected would carry us across the bay and out through the Barcos Channel within the next hour, but, to Courtenay's and my own inexpressible chagrin, Carera now informed us that, in order to escape the possibility of a second rencontre with the frigate we had fallen in with on our passage up, he had determined to go to the westward, returning round Cape San Antonio instead of by way of Cape Maysi.

This was horribly disconcerting, for, to tell the truth, we had to a large extent been hoping for and depending upon such a rencontre as a means whereby we might effect our escape from the felucca. We thought that, in the event of such a meeting, as we had on the former occasion afforded such material assistance to the felucca's crew in their evasion of capture, so now by a little judicious manoeuvring on our part we might be the means of effecting it; and it was a severe disappointment to us to find that this—the most promising opening we had so far been able to think of—was going to slip through our fingers. We urged upon Carera the importance of time, and reiterated, as often as we dared, our (assumed) belief that the frigate was by that time far enough away from the Bahama Channel; but it was all in vain, the fellow was not to be dissuaded from his purpose, and accordingly, on leaving the Conconil lagoons, instead of stretching away before the wind straight for the Barcos Channel, the felucca was headed to the westward, on the larboard tack, for the Manou Channel, leading from Santa Clara Bay into Cardenas Bay.

As this course would take us over new ground, Courtenay and I determined to remain on deck to pick up any information likely to be of use to us in the future; and I went to the helm, whilst my companion busied himself with the sounding-line. An hour's run brought us to the inner end of the channel, which we found to be somewhat serpentine in its course, but trending generally in a north-north-west direction, with a minimum depth of two and a half fathoms. A run of about twenty minutes carried us clear of this channel and we found ourselves in Cardenas Bay, an almost landlocked sheet of water nearly double the area of Santa Clara Bay and with slightly deeper water, though even here navigation was only possible for vessels of very light draught. Stretching across the bay we, half an hour later, passed through a group of small cays, after which the water began to deepen somewhat. At two o'clock a.m. we passed Molas Point, and, hauling sharp round it, found ourselves a quarter of an hour later fairly out at sea and clear of all dangers. After which, thoroughly tired out by our long and busy day, Courtenay and I went below and turned in.

By noon next day—or rather, the same day, to speak with strict accuracy—we were off Havana; and I was in hopes that Carera would put in there, as he seemed at first to have some idea of doing; for our whole thoughts were now bent on effecting our escape from the felucca as early as possible, and I considered it not improbable that in so important a harbour some neutral ship might be found, on board which we might succeed in taking refuge, and with the master of which we might be able to effect an arrangement by which he would be willing to convey us to Port Royal. But to our intense, though secret, mortification, Carera at length resolved to keep straight on; and thus another of our cherished hopes was disappointed. We found, however, on inspecting Carera's well-worn chart, that the route he had adopted would take us within some ten miles of West Point, Jamaica; and shaving the island so closely as that there was just a possibility that we might be pounced upon by one of our own cruisers, so that we were, after all, not exactly in despair. Still, there was, on the other hand, the chance that the felucca might scrape clear; and it was just this chance that we had to provide against, the attempt to do which cost us an infinite amount of anxious and almost fruitless thought. It was, indeed, the only thing now left us to think about. By a curious combination of fortuitous circumstances we had not only tumbled blindfold, as it were, into this singular adventure, but had also been enabled to successfully avoid awakening the suspicions of the people we were so unexpectedly associated with, as well as to see our way clearly all through the adventure, except to its successful ending; and, having carried the thing smoothly forward so far, we did not intend to be beaten at last, if there was any possibility of avoiding it. We racked our brains perpetually on the subject, separately and together, and numerous enough were the schemes which we evolved; but, alas, they were all so nearly impracticable that only under the most exceptionally favourable circumstances could we hope to carry them through successfully. The two least impracticable were Courtenay's proposal to scuttle the felucca when within a few miles of Jamaica, trusting to all hands being able to make the island, as the nearest place of refuge, in the boat; and my own scheme, which was that we should secure possession of the armoury in the cabin, and, seizing upon the first favourable opportunity which might present itself, arm ourselves to the teeth, and, driving the watch on deck into the forecastle, take possession of the felucca and endeavour to navigate her into Port Royal by our own unaided exertions. The chief objections to the first scheme were the difficulty of obtaining the tools necessary to the effectual performance of the scuttling, in the first place, and, in the next, the still greater difficulty of performing the operation undetected. As regards my own scheme, the difficulty lay in the fact that, unless the watch could be driven below without alarming that portion of the crew already in the forecastle, our case was utterly hopeless; for, should these last be disturbed and come on deck, what could two slender lads, even fully armed, do against ten stout, sinewy, full-grown men? We might possibly shoot down three or four; but unless the rest happened to be cowed by this—which we decided was not by any means to be depended upon—we must then be quickly overpowered by sheer force of numbers. This scheme was justly regarded by us both as being of so exceedingly desperate a character, that only as a very last resource would its adoption be justifiable. Nevertheless, we determined to take such measures as were possible for the carrying out of either scheme in the event of nothing better occurring to us.

Meanwhile, day succeeded day without the slightest opportunity occurring for us to initiate Courtenay's scheme. We required a good-sized auger with which to bore the necessary holes in the ship's bottom, and some soft wood out of which to fashion plugs wherewith to plug up those holes until the proper moment should arrive for withdrawing them and letting the water into the hull. The wood there was no difficulty about, and we secured enough for a dozen or more plugs; but no such thing as an auger could we lay hands upon. We even went the perilous length of inventing a pretext for gaining access to the carpenter's tool-chest, without success; and we were at length driven to the conclusion that, strange as it might seem, there was no such thing on board the felucca.

To add to our chagrin and discomfiture, we were no sooner round Cape San Antonio than we discovered that Carera, quite as acute as ourselves, had also foreseen the possibility of a British cruiser being fallen in with if Jamaica were shaved too closely; and he had provided against this contingency by laying off a course for Cartagena, which would enable him to give the island a wide berth. This move on our worthy skipper's part we were, however, able to a large extent to frustrate; for we found that he was no navigator, sailing his vessel by dead-reckoning only, so that by each of us taking long spells at the tiller, as was now indeed our regular custom, we were able to edge the felucca considerably to windward of her course and in toward Jamaica without Carera being any the wiser.

In this exceedingly unsatisfactory manner time progressed—and we with it—until the sixth morning after our abrupt departure from the Conconil lagoons; when, as day broke and the sun rose, clearing away a light bank of grey cloud on the eastern horizon, a soft, delicate purplish hummock- like protuberance was seen rising out of the sea broad on our larboard bow, which was at once recognised as land, and so reported to Carera. Courtenay and I were in our berths and asleep at the moment; but the cry of "Land ho!" at once aroused us, and, slipping on our clothes, we hurried on deck to see what it looked like. We found Carera there, staring in the utmost perplexity at the small grey shape—only discernible when the felucca rose on the crest of a sea—and audibly wondering what on earth it could be. We knew pretty well what it was; Carera kept his small stock of charts in the after cabin, and always spread them out on the cabin table to lay off his course and distance run, so that we had had abundant opportunity to refer, as often as we pleased, to the particular chart he was using on that trip, and had met with no difficulty whatever in keeping a private dead-reckoning of our own, from which we were already aware that we might expect to make Dolphin Head, the highest point of land at the extreme westernmost end of Jamaica, on this particular morning. The report that other land had just become visible about a point further to the southward—and which we judged to be the lofty hill behind Blewfields Bay—confirmed us in our belief that our calculations had proved correct. Carera, in his perplexity, went aloft as far as our stumpy mast-head—a thing we had never known him do before—to get a clearer view of the land, the bearings of which were then taken, after which our skipper, accompanied by Courtenay and me, descended to the cabin to consult the chart. On reference to this, there was of course only one conclusion to be arrived at, which was that the land in sight was none other than Jamaica. It now turned out that he had never visited the island, had never indeed sighted it from the westward before; hence his difficulty in identifying it; but whilst we were all three discussing the matter down below Manuel came to the open sky-light in great trepidation to report shoal water all round the ship. This of course caused us to rush straightway on deck again, though Courtenay and I, knowing that we must be just about crossing the edge of the Pedro bank, felt no apprehension whatever. With Carera and the rest of the felucca's people the matter was very different; they were all out of their reckoning, and confused accordingly; and the sudden sight of the bright-green water all about us, and the shorter, more choppy character of the sea, whilst only a short time before the water had been as purely blue as the heaven above us, and the sea long and regular, completed their discomfiture. For a minute or two disorder reigned supreme on board the little craft; everybody had an opinion to express and advice to give, everybody was jabbering excitedly at the same moment; no man paid the slightest attention to his neighbour; and as all hands were by this time on deck the result may be imagined. Even the helmsman deserted his post at last to join in the general clamour; a circumstance of which Courtenay took immediate advantage by springing to the tiller and ramming it hard down. The lively little craft at once shot into the wind with her canvas loudly flapping; and this stilled the tumult in a moment.

"'Bout ship!" shouted Courtenay, as every man stopped short in the midst of his gabbling; "'bout ship! there is blue water away there to windward of us, and if we can once reach it we are safe."

The men sprang at once like cats to their stations, and the immense lateen sail was trimmed over on the other tack with an amount of alacrity which showed how intense was their relief at finding somebody on board equal to the occasion.

So far, this was well; the felucca was now heading about north-north- east and straight for the land, so that our chance of falling in with a British cruiser was a shade better than before. But, alas, no cruiser, or sail of any kind, was just then in sight; for, giving way to my anxiety, I in my turn shinned aloft to take a good look round. But the land was there, plainly enough, not only the two peaks already reported—the second of which was now directly ahead—but also five others, ranging from three to five points on our weather bow.

We stood on as we were going for a couple of hours, so as to get well to windward of the shoal—though, as a matter of fact, there was plenty of water over it everywhere to have floated us, or even a frigate, for that matter—going about again when the men had taken their breakfast. The high land was by this time well in sight all along our larboard beam, being certainly not more than forty miles distant; and the circumstance that Carera was afraid of the shoal and determined to keep off it was greatly in our favour, since in order to clear Portland Rock, at its north-eastern extremity, we should have to draw even closer still in with the island. I was at first terribly afraid that some suspicion would attach to my comrade and myself as the authors of the error in the course we had been steering, but I was agreeably disappointed; so far, indeed, was Carera from suspecting anything that he confided to us at breakfast—to which we had invited him—that, though he could not in the least account for our being so far to windward, he was most heartily glad of it, since we appeared to have the sea all to ourselves. He was still a trifle uneasy, however, at being so near the very stronghold and head-quarters of the dreaded British in those waters; and when we all went on deck after breakfast, his first act was to order a hand aloft to the mast-head to keep a bright lookout. It was just ten o'clock in the forenoon, and the man at the mast-head was in the very act of descending the rigging—another man getting ready meanwhile to relieve him—when he uttered an excited exclamation which at once attracted all eyes toward him.

"Look over there, captain, broad on our weather bow. Do you see that turtle lying there asleep on the water?"

Carera sprang on to the weather rail, and, steadying himself with one hand by the shroud whilst he shielded his eyes with the other, peered eagerly to windward. The rest of the watch also dropped whatever they happened to be busied with, and, exclaiming "A turtle! a turtle!" unceremoniously ranged themselves alongside their skipper.

"No," said Carera, after a long look in the direction indicated, "I don't see anything of him; where is—"

"There he is; I see him!" exclaimed one of the men. "Ah! now he is gone again, settled into the trough. Look a bit further out in that direction, captain—there he is again; Madre de Dios, what a monster! don't you see him?"

"Yes, yes; I see him now," answered Carera excitedly; "down with your helm, my man, and let her shoot into the wind. We will have that fellow. Get the boat into the water, smartly now, men. Give the watch below a call."

"To what purpose?" I interposed: "No, no, let the poor fellows finish their sleep in peace; my friend and I will look after the felucca whilst you are away in the boat."

"To be sure we will," said Courtenay, with a quiet wink at me; and springing aft to the tiller, he laid his hand upon it, saying to the man who held it:

"Away with you, Jose, my fine fellow, into the boat, and lend a hand to secure that turtle; it is not every day we sailors get such a chance."

Meanwhile, the rest of us unshipped the lee gangway, and getting the boat athwart the deck, sent her stern first overboard with a splash which I was in an agony of fear would awake the turtle, and so frustrate the scheme which had darted into my brain—and Courtenay's also, I fancied, by the knowing wink he had bestowed upon me—when it was proposed to go away in the boat after the creature. But no; there he was still, apparently fast asleep, rising and falling upon the surface of the restless waters, his capacious shell glistening brightly as the sunbeams flashed upon it.

The four men constituting the watch stepped as quietly as possible into the boat, and, followed by Carera, took their places at the oar; Carera standing up in the stern-sheets to look out for the quarry and to direct his men how to pull. I was in a perfect fever of anxiety lest the flapping of the sail and the bustle on deck should awaken the watch below and bring them out of the forecastle to see what was the matter; but seamen seldom pay any attention to these things, so far at least as to leave their bunks in their watch below; and when at length the boat shoved off and paddled gently round the felucca's quarter, Courtenay and I found ourselves most unexpectedly in the very situation for which we had so long been ineffectually scheming, namely, in undisputed possession of the little craft's deck.

Without wasting a single moment in watching the progress of the boat, I at once slipped forward, and, gently drawing over the slide of the fore- scuttle, slipped the hasp over the staple, stuffed a few doubled-up rope-yarns through the latter to keep the former in position, and then quietly walked aft.

"Well, old boy," said I, as I joined Courtenay at the tiller, "the felucca is ours; and that, too, without a single particle of all that trouble which we anticipated. If we had planned the thing ever so elaborately we could not have managed half so well. Up stick, my hearty, fill on her; and hey for Port Royal, which I hope we shall see to-morrow morning."

"Ay, ay," said Courtenay with a puzzled air, "that is all very well. But what about those poor beggars adrift there in the boat? What are they to do without food and water?"

"Well," said I, "to tell you the truth I never thought about that. It is true they are only forty miles from the land, with fine weather and every prospect of its lasting, but I suppose we ought not to leave them without a mouthful of bread or a drop of water. Just jog the felucca gently along, taking care that the boat is not allowed to come alongside again, and I'll see what I can do. I wonder how they are getting on in the matter of the turtle!"

I jumped on the rail in the wake of the rigging and looked out to windward. Apparently they were too much engrossed with their chase to take any notice of us, for I could see them paddling warily along, evidently purposing to get to windward of their sleeping prey and then drift with the wind noiselessly down upon him. Carera was still standing up in the stern-sheets peering eagerly over the boat's larboard bow; and the men were all intently looking over their right shoulders. Presently I saw them lay their oars cautiously inboard, and then all hands ranged themselves along the larboard side of the boat, careening her almost gunwale-to as they stretched their arms over her side. Then followed a short pause of evidently breathless suspense, succeeded by a simultaneous grab! and in another instant I saw that they had secured the turtle—and a splendid fellow he was—and were dragging him inboard by main strength.

"All right!" I exclaimed; "they have caught him. Now, I will see what I can do toward providing them with some food and water."

As I turned away to do this a large wash-deck tub caught my eye; and it immediately struck me that this would be a capital thing to turn adrift with a supply of food, as it was sufficiently capacious to hold as much as would last them, with care, two or three days, instead of the twenty hours or so which it would take them to reach the land. The tub was quite dry inside and perfectly water-tight, as I happened to know, so I dragged it to the lee gangway for convenience in launching, and then hurried away to the cabin in search of provender. Opening the store- room door, I rummaged about until I found a bread-bag half full. I turned the bread out of this until there was only enough left to serve them amply for the time they were likely to be afloat, and in on top of this I popped half a cheese, together with a cooked ox-tongue, which we had only cut into that morning at breakfast, and a piece of boiled salt beef. This cargo I conveyed on deck and deposited in the tub, which I considered was then loaded as fully as was desirable, considering that we intended to set it afloat in a roughish sea for a craft of that build. I then went below again for an empty vinegar keg which I had stumbled over in the store-room; and, taking it on deck, I filled it with water from the scuttle-butt, bunged it securely, and my preparations were complete.

Meanwhile Courtenay had been very cleverly dodging the felucca along almost in the wind's eye, so that she had made but little progress, and the boat, which had been tearing after us as hard as the oarsmen could pull her through the water, was not more than half a mile astern. I told Courtenay what I had done, and what I proposed to do; and whilst I passed a couple of rope's ends through the handles of the tub, in readiness to launch it overboard at the proper moment, my companion wore the felucca round and stood back toward the boat.

Seeing us returning directly toward them, the men laid upon their oars, possibly imagining that we were about to pick them up. Straight as a line for them we ran until they were only about a cable's length distant, when Courtenay sprang his luff, and we darted away considerably to windward of them, upon which they took to their oars once more, and began to force the boat heavily ahead against the sea. Seeing that we had ample time to launch the tub, I now signed Courtenay to shoot the felucca into the wind, when, waiting until she had all but lost her way, we very cleverly launched the tub and the keg over the side without causing the former to ship so much as a drop of water, and then filled away once more. The occupants of the boat, by this time thoroughly mystified, paddled quietly up to the floating tub, and transferred its contents to the boat. Meanwhile we in the felucca, having stood on to a sufficient distance, once more wore round, and again made for the boat, luffing and shaking the wind out of our sail when within hailing distance of her. Then, whilst Courtenay narrowly watched the boat, and held himself ready to fill on the felucca again in good time to avoid being boarded, I sprang into the lee rigging and hailed:

"Boat ahoy! We are sorry to take the felucca from you, but circumstances, which we have now no time to explain, oblige us to do so. We are going to take her to Port Royal. Yonder is the land, not more than forty miles away; the weather is fine and settled, so you will have no difficulty in reaching the shore by this time to-morrow. When you land make at once for Port Royal. We will arrange that, on reaching there, you shall be properly cared for until such time as the Pinta can be restored to you. You will find provisions in the tub and fresh water in the keg, which we have dropped overboard. And now, adieu! we wish you a pleasant passage."

Carera and his comrades seemed to take in my meaning even before I had finished speaking, for, with a whole torrent of sonorous Spanish maledictions, they once more dashed their oars into the water and made for the felucca. But Courtenay promptly kept her away and filled the sail, and we slid foaming past the boat at a distance of some five-and- twenty feet; and of course, once fairly moving in such a breeze and sea, no boat that was ever built would have had the slightest chance with the Pinta. They pulled desperately after us for fully half an hour, however, and then we lost sight of them.

We were hardly well clear of the boat when a hammering and shouting at the fore-scuttle told us that the watch below had awakened to the suspicion that something was amiss on deck, and that they were anxious to know why they were battened down. I accordingly went forward and, without opening the scuttle, shouted to them that the felucca had been surprised and captured by the British, which in a sense was quite true, and that, unless they wished to be treated as pirates, the best thing they could do would be to remain perfectly quiet and give no trouble whatever. That the vessel was being taken into Port Royal, and that on our arrival there I would make it my business to see the proper authorities and so explain matters to them that the worst thing likely to befall the felucca's crew would be their temporary detention only. It is very likely that this communication puzzled them considerably, but if so, it also had the effect of keeping them quiet, for we never heard another sound from them. Indeed, had they tried to give us trouble, it is probable we should have mastered them before they could all have gained the deck, for our first act, after quieting them, was to arm ourselves each with a whole beltful of loaded pistols and the best of the swords in the felucca's armoury, after which we pitched the whole of the remaining weapons overboard.

Next morning, at daybreak, we took on board a black pilot off Portland Point, reaching Port Royal just in time to hear eight bells struck on board the various ships lying at anchor in the harbour.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A PACKET OF DISTURBING LETTERS.

The first task was to send by shore-boat a brief note on board the admiral, informing him of our capture, and requesting him to send a few hands on board to take care of the vessel. A prompt reply, in the shape of a somewhat dandified mid, with a dozen stout seamen to back him, was vouchsafed to this request, the midshipman bringing with him also a verbal message to the effect that the admiral would be glad to see us on board to breakfast with him. This condescension, of course, merely meant that he was curious to hear full particulars of the capture, but we nevertheless felt much gratified at the invitation; and, detaining the gig alongside only long enough to enable us to make ourselves presentable, we jumped into her, and five minutes later found ourselves on the quarter-deck of the old Mars.

Admiral J— himself happened to be on deck at the moment when we stepped in through the entering port, and the look of mingled astonishment and anger with which he regarded us as we presented ourselves before him at once told us that something was wrong.

"How now, young gentlemen!" he testily exclaimed; "are you the two midshipmen who sent me this note, informing me that you had captured yonder cock-boat of a felucca?" We respectfully intimated that we were. "Then how comes it, sirs, that you have presumed to come on board me in those 'longshore togs? Away with you back at once, and when next you venture to appear in my presence, see to it that you come in a proper uniform."

The murder was out. We were, of course, dressed in the clothes with which Don Luis de Guzman had so generously supplied us, and we had been for so long a time out of uniform that it had never occurred to us that our costume would be regarded as in the slightest degree inappropriate. We explained in as few words as possible that we were two of the surviving officers of the Hermione, that we had been for some time prisoners in La Guayra, and that we had only very recently effected our escape therefrom; and that put the whole affair straight in a moment, the admiral, who, peppery as was his temper, was a thoroughly kind- hearted old fellow in the main, actually condescending to apologise for his hasty speech; and, the steward at that moment announcing that breakfast was on the table, we all—that is to say, the admiral, Captain Bradshaw, Courtenay, and myself—trundled into the cabin and took our places at the table. Then, for the first time, as we found ourselves once more in the society of our own countrymen, with good wholesome English fare sending forth its grateful odours to our nostrils, with the table covered with its snowy linen, and laden with the handsome, yet home-like breakfast equipage, did we fully realise all that we had passed through since we had last found ourselves so placed, and for my part the revulsion of feeling almost overcame me. The emotions of a midshipman are, however, proverbially of a very transient character, and I soon found myself prosecuting a most vigorous attack upon the comestibles, and, between mouthfuls, relating in pretty full detail all our adventures from the moment of the mutiny, excepting, of course, my love passages with Dona Inez, which I kept strictly to myself.

The story of the mutiny naturally excited a very lively interest, and Courtenay and I were questioned and cross-questioned upon the subject until we were absolutely pumped dry, it transpiring that we were the first survivors of that dreadful tragedy who had reappeared among our own countrymen. The narrative of our sojourn in La Guayra did not, I regret to say, prove one-tenth part so attractive; but when we reached the subject of the Conconil lagoons, Merlani's treasure hoard, and the scheme of the Spanish authorities to at once possess themselves of it and suppress the piratical band, the interest again revived, and we were questioned almost as closely on this subject as we had been about the mutiny.

Before the meal was concluded, it had been settled that a schooner— lately a French privateer—recently captured, and then in the hands of the dockyard people undergoing the process of refitting, should be hurried forward with all possible despatch, and commissioned by a certain lieutenant O'Flaherty, with Courtenay and myself as his aides, her especial mission to be the destruction of Merlani's stronghold, and the capture of as many members of the piratical gang as we could lay hands upon. As, however, it seemed that the Foam—as the schooner had been re-christened—could not possibly be got ready under eight or ten days at the earliest, we were informed that we might take a week to look about us, a permission of which we most gladly availed ourselves. We were also informed that the prize-money for the Jean Rabel affair had been awarded, and the admiral was good enough to advise us to put our business affairs into the hands of his own agent in Kingston, to whom he gave us a letter of introduction.

Our first business on leaving the Mars was to take passage to Kingston in one of the many sailing-boats which, owned by negro boatmen, are always obtainable at Port Royal, and in her we managed, with the aid of a fine sea-breeze, to make the passage in an hour, being badly beaten, however, in a race with a gig belonging to the frigate Volage which happened to be lying at Port Royal at the time.

Arrived in Kingston we made our way, in the first instance, to the post- office, where we each found several letters awaiting us. There were nine for me, of which eight were from my father, and one—heaven only knows how it had found its way across in so short a time—from Dona Inez. I ought, I suppose, to have first opened those from my father; but I did not. With the ardour that might have been expected I first tore open the envelope superscribed by Inez. The letter was dated the day after our flight from La Guayra; and the poor girl, who had already learned from the faithful Juan that our plans had somehow been capsized, had written in an agony of apprehension as to our safety. It appeared that Juan—whose arrival at the cove had been delayed about half an hour by the suspicious manoeuvres of a felucca ahead of him, undoubtedly the Pinta—had hung about the spot for something like an hour and a half, at the expiration of which time two Spaniards had presented themselves on the beach and had inquired whether he belonged to the Pinta. On his saying that he did not he had been very sharply cross-questioned as to who he was, and the reasons for his presence there at that hour, which cross-questioning he was sensible enough to evade and cut short by retreating to his felucca and returning to La Guayra, from whence he, the first thing next morning, made his way to the castle to report and to seek further instructions. Having actually witnessed our departure, and knowing from the time at which it had occurred that we must have made our way on board the wrong felucca—which Juan was subsequently able to say with almost absolute certainty must have been the Pinta—my lady-love was painfully anxious as to our fate; for it appeared that the Pinta and her crew bore a somewhat evil reputation among those who professed to know her best at La Guayra; and the only hope or consolation which Dona Inez could find lay in her somewhat too favourable estimate of our ability to take care of ourselves. She most earnestly entreated that I would not lose a moment, after the receipt of her letter, in writing to set her mind at rest. She added that her father had returned home in excellent health; and that, though he had at first betrayed some vexation at the loss of our services, he had soon cooled down, and had then acknowledged that he was glad, for our sakes, that we had succeeded in effecting our escape.

Having read and re-read this most cherished epistle some half a dozen times over, I refolded and put it carefully into my pocket, next turning to the letters from my father, which I arranged and opened according to the dates of the postmarks.

The first of these letters—being the third written by my father since the date of my leaving England (I had received the other two on the occasion of our former visit to Port Royal, in the Hermione)—was very similar to all others which had ever reached me from the same writer; brief, cold, and evidently strained and artificial as to the one or two expressions of affection contained therein—altogether a painful and unsatisfactory letter to receive, in fact. The second was somewhat similar, except that therein my father condescended to inform me that he was by no means well; that he thought he had perhaps been overworking himself, and that unless his health speedily mended he feared he should be obliged to call in medical advice. This was sufficiently alarming; but the third letter was even more so, for in it he informed me that he had suffered a complete break-down in health and spirits; that he had placed himself under the care of Doctor Wise, one of the most eminent physicians of the day, and that he had not only been strictly enjoined to entirely lay aside his brush for at least six months, but that he had also been ordered to travel. This, however, was evidently not the worst of it; for the letter, a long, rambling, and somewhat incoherent epistle this time, went on to hint mysteriously at the causes which had brought this lamentable state of affairs about; but so obscurely was the letter worded that, on its first perusal, the only information I could definitely gather from it was that my father was then suffering from the effects of many years of mental anguish resulting from some matter which, if I understood him aright, seemed to be in some way connected with my poor dead mother. The letter concluded with the extraordinary words, "Lionel, the shadow of deception and falsehood rests upon us both, and from no fault of ours.—Yours distractedly, Cuthbert Lascelles."

"The shadow of deception and falsehood!—no fault of ours!—yours distractedly!" Whatever could it all mean? The closing words of the letter, "yours distractedly," puzzled me most of all. Hitherto my father's communications to me, however lacking in affection they might otherwise have been, had all terminated with the orthodox "your affectionate father." Why, then, this departure from the rule? Was it intentional, or was it merely to be regarded as an indication of the terribly disturbed state of the writer's mind?

I read and re-read this most singular epistle at least half a dozen times without gathering any additional light upon the obscure and mysterious hints which it contained, and I then turned to the remaining letters, thinking I might possibly find in them a solution to the enigma. And at the first reading I imagined I did find it; the conclusion at which I arrived being that my poor unfortunate father must have gone mad! I patiently went through the whole packet a second time, seeking in them some additional evidence of insanity; but no, saving on this one particular matter the writer had evidently been in full possession of all his faculties. The fourth letter contained the information that the news of the mutiny on board the Hermione had reached England, and that it was believed some of the officers had escaped massacre and had been landed at La Guayra. Touching this matter he had written: "I can scarcely say, at this moment, whether I hope you are among the living or among the dead. If the latter, I shall at least enjoy the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that I have seen the last of one who, though I could have dearly loved him, and have been proud of him for his own sake, was, nevertheless, although my own son, almost hateful to me, because of his marked resemblance to one whose duplicity has been the curse of my life. But if, on the other hand, you are living, Lionel—as something whispers to me that you are—I shall perhaps be disposed to accept your preservation as a token from Heaven that I may, after all, have been mistaken, and that your mother could, had I given her the opportunity, have explained those circumstances which, unexplained, completely shattered her own happiness and mine."

The next letter, the fifth, was dated from Rome, in which city my father informed me that he had then been staying for about three weeks; but that he was about to leave it again, for what destination he could not then say, as he had derived no benefit whatever from the change—was rather worse, in fact—since the city was so full of associations connected with my mother that his trouble was then harder than ever to bear. He added that he was still strongly impressed with the idea of my being alive, and that this idea, with the excuse it afforded him for continuing to write to me, gave him some small comfort. He said he had been exceedingly gratified at the very favourable report which had reached him of my conduct at Jean Rabel, and he most earnestly besought me, if indeed I were still alive, to comport myself in such a manner that my glorious deeds might in some measure, if not wholly, atone for the suffering my mother had caused him. The remaining letters were dated from Naples. They all dwelt upon the same theme; but the last closed with the request that, if it ever reached me, I would at once write in reply, addressing my letter to his lawyer in London, who would be kept advised of his whereabouts and would forward it on to him. There was also an assurance that he had no desire to visit my mother's heartless deception of him upon me, since, whatever were her faults, I was his son, and he had no intention of disowning the relationship; so that, if ever in need of money, I was without hesitation to draw upon him for any reasonable amount. "In want of money, indeed!" Luckily, I was not; but, as I crushed the letters back into my pocket, I solemnly vowed that, rather than touch a penny of that man's money, at least whilst his state of mind remained what it then was, I would perish of starvation in a ditch. Then bewildered, stunned, and utterly crushed in spirit, I hastily excused myself to Courtenay upon the plea of having received distressing news from England, and, obeying the same impulse which impels a wounded animal to rush away and hide itself and its suffering in the deepest solitudes, I turned my back upon Kingston, with its busy bustling streets, and hastened to bury myself among the hills. I pushed forward without rest or pause until I found myself on the crest of a lofty eminence overlooking the town and harbour; when, flinging myself down beneath the grateful shade of a gigantic cotton-wood, I gave free vent to my feelings of suspense, indignation, and sorrow, and burying my face in my hands wept as if my heart would break. I will not attempt to describe or enlarge upon the feelings which then harrowed my soul; the words have never yet been coined which could adequately express my anguish. No merely mortal pen could depict it; nor can anyone, save those unfortunates who have passed through such an ordeal, imagine it. Moreover, the subject even now, when I am old and grey- headed, is still so painful to me that I care not to dwell unduly upon it. Let me, therefore, pass on to the moment when, relieved, yet exhausted by the passage of that terrible outburst of tears, I had so far regained composure as to be able to look my position fairly in the face.

My first act was to draw forth the fatal bundle of letters and reperuse them patiently from beginning to end, still clinging to the desperate hope that I had after all, in some unaccountable way, misunderstood my father's meaning, and that I was under some hallucination. But no; there were the words all too plainly written for any possibility of mistake. His was the hallucination—not mine. False? A dissimulator? I thrust my hand into my bosom, and dragged forth the velvet case containing my mother's portrait, which I had worn next my heart throughout all the vicissitudes of fortune encountered by me since the moment it had first been placed in my hands, and, pressing the spring, threw back the cover, and allowed my eyes to rest upon the loveliness it had concealed. Deceitful! If falsehood lurked within the liquid depths of those clear, calm, steadfast eyes, or was hidden behind that smooth and placid brow, then I thought must the very angels be false! If falsehood could shroud itself behind a mask of such surpassing loveliness, such an aspect and personification of all that is pure, and innocent, and faithful, and true, "where," I asked myself, "oh! where is truth to be found?" That my mother had, all unwittingly, and in some inexplicable manner aroused my father's suspicions, I could not doubt; but, after all, the matter was manifestly, to my mind, merely one of fancied or implied duplicity or deceit capable of easy explanation; it would probably have had no lasting effect on any but a diseased mind; and, knowing him as well as I did, I could understand how, with his reserved temperament and in his wounded pride, my father would silently withdraw himself from his wife, nor deign to stoop so far as to seek an explanation. I could discern only too clearly that he had taken as proof of dissimulation some circumstance that would only appear suspicious until the opportunity for explanation had passed away for ever—hence the unhappiness of which I had gained an inkling during my nursery days—and that it was probably not until his heart had been softened by bereavement that he had coolly and dispassionately enough reviewed the circumstances to arrive at the conclusion that he might, after all, have been mistaken. My father had written of his "doubts and misgivings," and I felt confident that it was nothing in the world but the tenacious hold of these doubts and misgivings upon his mind which had in the first instance made him so unfatherly in his treatment of me, and had now reduced him almost to a condition of insanity. It was the horrible uncertainty which was killing him, soul and body—the uncertainty whether, on the one hand, his suspicions had been well founded; or whether, on the other hand, he had been hideously cruel and unjust to the one being who, above all others, ought to have been the object of his most tender solicitude. I had no doubt whatever upon the subject; there was a conviction, amounting to absolute certainty in my mind, that my unhappy father had all too easily allowed himself to be deceived, and I there and then solemnly vowed and resolved that henceforward it should be the great object and aim of my life to demonstrate this to him to the point of positive conviction. "Yes," I exclaimed, springing to my feet with renewed hope, "I had already one incentive—my love for Inez—to spur me forward to great and noble achievements: I have now another—the justification of my dead mother's memory; and henceforward these shall be the twin stars to guide me onward in my career. 'For Love and Honour' shall be my motto; and, with these two for guerdon, what may a man not dare and do?"

An hour later saw me back in Kingston and comfortably ensconced in the bay-window of a private room in the—hotel, inditing a long epistle to my father in collective reply to the entire budget I had that morning received from him. In this letter I summarily disposed of the mutiny and my subsequent adventures in half a dozen brief sentences, feeling that such a matter could well wait until my father was in a more congenial mood for the communication of particulars; devoting my entire energies to the combating of those doubts which I now saw had been for years insidiously sapping his happiness, ay, and his very intellect as well I thanked him for taking me into his confidence, fully entered into my reasons for regarding his suspicions as groundless, and besought him first to communicate to me fully all the facts of the case—which, I pointed out to him, I ought to be made acquainted with, in order that I might be enabled to take the fullest advantage of any opportunity which might offer, in my wanderings, to sift the matter to the bottom—and then to dismiss all thought of it from his mind. This letter cost me three or four hours of severe study; but I contrived to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion at last; and then, with a considerably lighter heart, I began and finished a letter to Inez, in which, mingled with the usual lover-like protestations, I gave her full details of our adventure from the parting moment on the beach to our arrival in Port Royal harbour. I further told her that I found myself at that moment possessed of a tidy little sum in prize-money, and that, inspired by my love for her, I had resolved to fight my way to the top of the ladder with the utmost possible expedition, with a great deal more of the same sort, which would no doubt appear the most arrant nonsense to you, dear reader, so I will not inflict it upon you.

These two important tasks completed, I felt very much more easy in my mind, and was able to sit down to my dinner, which was shortly afterwards served, with a tolerable appetite. Whilst I was engaged in discussing the meal Courtenay came in. He informed me that he had accepted an invitation for himself and me to spend a week with Mr Thomson (the admiral's, and also our own, agent) at his country house, some fifteen miles off in the heart of the Blue Mountain range; and that, as he had been unable to find me in time for us to go out there that evening, our host had promised to send in a couple of saddle-horses and a negro guide for our accommodation next morning, and that we should find them awaiting us at Mr Thomson's store at nine o'clock. This was good news, for though I had pulled myself pretty well together after the shock occasioned by the perusal of my father's letters, I felt that a little change and amusement would be most acceptable under the circumstances.