somewhat insolent stupidity: the most pious mind might be reasonably forgiven for venting itself in the language of the forecastle, under the irritation of so many trials! But I offer you my apologies, Mr. Tregarthen, and I hope, sir, that you slept well!'

I answered him coldly and with averted eyes, being now resolved to persevere in my assumption of contemptuous dislike, which I also desired he should believe was animated by a determination to punish him when I got ashore.

He went to his cabin to refresh himself, first taking care to inform us, with a large smile, that he had spent the whole of the night on deck in looking after the vessel, 'whose safety,' he exclaimed, with a significant leer at Helga, 'has been rendered extraordinarily precious to me since Monday last.'

I now told her—for I had forgotten the incident—how our oily friend had whipped out a small oath on the previous night.

'So, then, he has humanized himself to you?' said she, laughing.

'It is the only symptom of sincerity I have observed in him,' I exclaimed.

He reappeared presently, soaped, shining, and smiling, with dried whiskers floating smoke-like on either hand a purple satin cravat. But the breakfast was to be a poor one that morning. The cook, it seems, could not keep the galley fire alight, and we had to make the best meal we could off a tin of preserved meat and some biscuit and wine-and-water. The Captain was profusely apologetic to Helga, and unctuously ascribed the poverty of the meal to me, who, he said with an air of jocosity, was the cause of half a ham and an excellent piece of beef being rendered unfit for the table. I made no answer to this. Indeed, Helga and I sat like mutes at that table; but the Captain talked abundantly, almost wholly addressing himself to the girl. In truth, it was now easy to see that the unfortunate man was head over ears in love with her. His gaze was a prolonged stare of admiration, and he seemed to find nothing in her behaviour to chill or repel him. On the contrary, the more she kept her eyes downwards bent, the colder and harder grew her face, the more taciturn she was—again and again not vouchsafing even a monosyllabic answer to him—the more he warmed towards her, the more he encroached in his behaviour. If he had any sensibility, it was armour-clad by complacency. I never could have believed that vanity had such power as I here found to sheath so impenetrably the human understanding. 'Well,' thought I to myself, 'all this means a voyage for Helga, 

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