the globe of the cabin lamp pitched off its perch by a violent lurch and
coming straight at her. Thus she had time to bow to circumstances, and
allow the missile to pass over her head into the bosom of Lady Tower,
where it was broken to atoms. The effect of mutual concession was so
strong on Mrs Pods and Mrs Tods, that the former secretly repented
having wished that one of Mrs Tods' little sons might fall down the
hatchway and get maimed for life, while the latter silently regretted
having hoped that one of Mrs Pods' little girls might fall overboard
and be half-drowned.

But the storm passed away and the effervescence returned--though not, it
is pleasing to add, with so much pungency as before. Thus, night and
day, the steamer sped on over the southern seas, across the mystic line,
and into the northern hemisphere, with the written records, hopes,
commands, and wishes of a continent in the mail-bags in her hold, and
leaving a beautiful milky-way behind her.

But there were more than letters and papers in these mail-bags. There
were diamonds! Not indeed those polished and glittering gems whose
proper resting-place is the brow of beauty, but those uncut pebbles that
are turned up at the mines, which the ignorant would fling away or give
to their children as playthings, but for which merchants and experts
would give hundreds and thousands of pounds. A splendid prize that
Royal Mail steamer would have been for the buccaneers of the olden time,
but happily there are no buccaneers in these days--at least not in
civilised waters. A famous pirate had, however, set his heart on those
diamonds--even old Neptune himself.

This is how it happened.

CHAPTER FIVE.

WRECK AND RESCUE.

One evening Miss Gentle and rotund little Mr Blurt were seated on two
camp-stools near the stern, conversing occasionally and gazing in a
dreamy frame of mind at the milky-way over which they appeared to
travel.

"I wonder much, Miss Gentle," said Mr Blurt, "that you were not more
afraid during that gale we had just before crossing the line?"

"I was a good deal afraid, though perhaps I did not show it. Your
remark," she added, with an arch glance at her companion, "induces me to
express some surprise that you seemed so much afraid."

"Afraid!" echoed Mr Blurt, with a smile; "why, I wasn't afraid--eh! was
I?"

"I beg pardon," hastily explained Miss Gentle, "I don't mean frightened,
of course; perhaps I should have said alarmed,