th all his
heart, that he had hoped for nothing in his love, but that he was now
the most miserable man in the world.

It was at this moment, so momentous to our hero, that some one who had
been hiding unseen nigh them for all the while suddenly moved away, and
Barnaby, in spite of the gathering darkness, could perceive that it was
that villain man-servant of Sir John Malyoe's. Nor could he but know
that the wretch must have overheard all that had been said.

As he looked he beheld this fellow go straight to the great cabin,
where he disappeared with a cunning leer upon his face, so that our
hero could not but be aware that the purpose of the eavesdropper must
be to communicate all that he had overheard to his master. At this
thought the last drop of bitterness was added to his trouble, for what
could be more distressing to any man of honor than to possess the
consciousness that such a wretch should have overheard so sacred a
conversation as that which he had enjoyed with the young lady. She,
upon her part, could not have been aware that the man had listened to
what she had been saying, for she still continued leaning over the
rail, and Barnaby remained standing by her side, without moving, but so
distracted by a tumult of many passions that he knew not how or where
to look.

After a pretty long time of this silence, the young lady looked up to
see why her companion had not spoken for so great a while, and at that
very moment Sir John Malyoe comes flinging out of the cabin without his
hat, but carrying his gold-headed cane. He ran straight across the deck
towards where Barnaby and the young lady stood, swinging his cane this
way and that with a most furious and threatening countenance, while the
informer, grinning like an ape, followed close at his heels. As Sir
John approached them, he cried out in so loud a voice that all on deck
might have heard him, "You hussy!" (And all the time, you are to
remember, he was swinging his cane as though he would have struck the
young lady, who, upon her part, shrank back from him almost upon the
deck as though to escape such a blow.) "You hussy! What do you do here,
talking with a misbred Yankee supercargo not fit for a gentlewoman to
wipe her feet upon, and you stand there and listen to his fool talk! Go
to your room, you hussy"--only 'twas something worse he called her this
time--"before I lay this cane across you!"

You may suppose into what fury such words as these, spoken in