ever get in."

Michael wrote an earnest line to say that Wardlaw senior had been
hitherto much occupied in fitting out the _Springbok,_ but that he was
going into the books next week. What was to be done?

The note was received; but Arthur declined to see the bearer. Then Wylie
told the servant it was Joseph Wylie, on a matter of life and death.
"Tell him I must stand on the staircase and hallo it out, if he won't
hear it any other way."

This threat obtained his admission to Arthur Wardlaw. The sailor found
him on a sofa, in a darkened room, pale and worn to a shadow.

"Mr. Wardlaw," said Wylie, firmly, "you mustn't think I don't feel for
you; but, sir, we are gone too far to stop, you and me. There is two
sides to this business; it is 150,000 pounds for you, and 2,000 pounds
for me, or it is--"

"What do I care for money now?" groaned Wardlaw. "Let it all go to the
Devil, who tempted me to destroy her I loved better than money, better
than all the world."

"Well, but hear me out," said Wylie. "I say it is 150,000 pounds to you
and 2,000 pounds to me, or else it is twenty years' penal servitude to
both on us."

"Penal servitude!" And the words roused the merchant from his lethargy
like a shower-bath.

"You know that well enough," said Wylie. "Why, 'twas a hanging matter a
few years ago. Come, come, there are no two ways; you must be a man, or
we are undone."

Fear prevailed in that timorous breast, which even love of money had
failed to rouse. Wardlaw sat up, staring wildly, and asked Wylie what he
was to do.

"First, let me ring for a bottle of that old brandy of yours."

The brandy was got. Wylie induced him to drink a wine-glassful neat, and
then to sit at the table and examine the sailors' declaration and the
logs. "I'm no great scholard," said he. "I warn't a going to lay these
before the underwriters till you had overhauled them. There, take another
drop now--'twill do you good--while I draw up this thundering blind."

Thus encouraged and urged, the broken-hearted schemer languidly compared
the seamen's declaration with the logs; and, even in his feeble state of
mind and body, made an awkward discovery at once.

"Why, they don't correspond!" said he.

"What don't correspond?"

"Your men's statement and the ship's log. The men speak of one heavy gale
after another, in January, and the pumps going; but the log says, 'A puff
of wind from the N.E.' And, here again, the entry exposes your
exaggerat