courageous friend's apprehension. My duty is exceedingly simple. I must do what is right. Right is divinely protected;' and I saw by the pose of his head that he cast his eyes up at the sky.

I nudged Helga as a hint not to speak, just breathlessly whispering, 'He is not to be reasoned with.'

It was a little before ten o'clock that night when the girl retired to her cabin. The Captain, addressing her in a simpering, loverlike voice, had importuned her to change her cabin. She needed to grow fretful before her determined refusals silenced him. He entered his berth when she had gone, and I took my pipe to enjoy a quiet smoke on deck. After the uproar of the past three days, the serenity of the night was exquisitely soothing. The moon shone in a curl of silver; the canvas soared in pallid visible spaces starwards; there was a pleasant rippling sound of gently stirred waters alongside, and the soft westerly night-wind fanned the cheek with the warmth of an infant's breath. The decks ran darkling forwards; the shadow of the courses flung a dye that was deeper than the gloom of the hour betwixt the rails, and nothing stirred save the low-lying stars which slipped up and down past the forecastle rail under the crescent of the foresail as the barque curtseyed.

Nevertheless, though I could not see the men, I heard a delicate sound of voices proceeding from the block of darkness where the forecastle front lay. Mr. Jones had charge of the watch, and, on my stepping aft to the wheel, I found Jacob grasping the spokes, having relieved the helm at four bells—ten o'clock. He was not to be accosted while on that duty; and my dislike of the mate had not been lessened by the few words which had passed between us since the day when the Cape steamer had gone by, and by my observation of his fawning behaviour to the Captain. I briefly exclaimed that it was a fine night, received some careless, drowsy answer from him, and, with pipe betwixt my lips, lounged lonely on the lee side of the deck, often overhanging the rail, and viewing the sea-glow as it crept by, with my mind full of Helga, of my home, of our experiences so far, and of what might lie before us.

I was startled out of a fit of musing by the forecastle bell ringing five. The clear, keen chimes floated like an echo from the sea, and I caught a faint reverberation of them in the hollow canvas. It was half-past ten. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, and, going on to the quarter-deck, dropped through the hatch.

The lantern swinging in the corridor betwixt the berths was burning. I lightly 

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