y ties of friendship, let the mystery of
my origin remain unravelled, renounce the land of my birth--for you, I
encounter the peril of being hung for desertion. Josephine, you will
incur a great debt--a heavy responsibility. My heart, my happiness, is
in your hands. Josephine, I stay."

"For ever?"

"For ever!" A wild shriek of joy burst from her delighted lips, as she
leaped to my bosom; and, for the first time, our lips sealed the
mysterious compact of love. After a moment, I gently released myself
from the sweet bondage of her embrace, and said, "Dear Josephine, this
cannot be to me a moment of unalloyed joy. You see the sun is half
below the horizon; give me one moment of natural grief; for, so surely
as I stay here, so surely, like that orb, are all my hopes of glory
setting, and for ever." And the tears came into my eyes as I exclaimed,
"Farewell, my country--farewell, honour--_Eos_, my gallant frigate, fare
thee well!"

As if instinct with life, the beautiful vessel answered my apostrophe.
The majestic thunder of her main-deck gun boomed awfully, and methought
sorrowfully, over the waters, and then bounded among the echoes of the
distant hills around and above me, slowly dying away in the distant
mountains. It was the gun which, as commodore, was fired at sunset.

"It is all over," I exclaimed. "I have made my election--leave me for a
little while alone."

CHAPTER FIFTY.

RALPH FALLETH INTO THE USUAL DELUSION OF SUPPOSING HIMSELF HAPPY--
WISHETH IT MAY LAST ALL HIS LIFE, MAKING IT A REALITY--AS YET NO
SYMPTOMS OF IT DISPELLING; BUT THE BRIGHTEST SUNSET MAY HAVE THE DARKEST
NIGHT.

She bounded from me in a transport of joy, shouting, "He stays, he
stays!" and I heard the words repeated among the groups of negresses,
who loved her; it seemed to be the burthen of a general song, the glad
realisation of some prophecy; for, ere the night was an hour old, the
old witch, who had had the tuition of Josephine, had already made a
mongrel sort of hymn of the affair, whilst a circle of black chins were
wagging to a chords of:--

"Goramity good, buchra body stays!"

I saw no more of Josephine that night. The old gentleman, her father,
joined me after I had been alone nearly two hours--two hours, I assure
the reader, of misery.

I contemplated a courtship of some decent duration, and a legal marriage
at the altar. I tried to view my position on all sides, and thus to
find out that which was the m