one, but simply tell the truth, and so let them adjudge the matter
as they see fit."

"That is it, sir," cried he--"that is it, sir. If the Company are
informed that I betrayed this important secret to Captain Leach, I'll
have to whistle for it a long time out in the cold before I get a snug
berth with them again."

"I am mightily sorry for you," said I, gravely. "But of course, sir,
that is a matter concerning which you alone are responsible.
Nevertheless, I must tell you that I am not inclined to leave this
place without endeavoring to recover that which has been so
unfortunately lost."

"What, sir!" he cried; "do you mean to say that you will undertake to
recover the Rose of Paradise again? And how do you purpose doing it, may
I ask?"

"You may ask, sir," says I, smiling; "but as for my telling you, why,
that is a very different matter."

Yet I had determined upon one point almost as soon as Mr. White had
informed me who was the pirate captain into whose hands the _Cassandra_
had fallen, and that was to go aboard of the pirate craft, and to speak
with Captain Edward England himself. I had known him before he had
entered into the nefarious life which he now followed, and while he was
still first mate of the _Lady Alice_. I was then with Captain Wraxel in
the West Indies, and had met England at Kingston, in the island of
Jamaica, upon which occasion he had appeared to conceive quite a liking
for me, though I cannot say it was returned in kind. I knew him as a
wild and reckless blade, but neither blood-thirsty nor cruel, and making
every allowance for the change in his nature which this wicked life
might effect, I did not believe that injury would happen to me if I
could once gain his promise of safety in visiting his ship.

As for the jewel, I did not believe that Captain Leach would disclose
the secret of it without he had been compelled to do so; wherefore, if
he had it still in his own keeping, I entertained a hope that I might by
some trick or other snatch the precious stone away from him again. In
that event I did not believe he would say anything, for fear that the
pirates might punish him for keeping it a secret from them.

But although I could perceive, as Mr. Longways had said, that it was of
great importance both to his future and mine own that the Rose of
Paradise should be regained, I ventured my life not so much in the hope
of obtaining the stone as of procuring some means by which all hands
might