d how, and where, do you refit, when damaged in a gale, or in a fight?"

"Hum! We contrive to refit, sir, and to take the sea in tolerable
condition."

He stopped; and Wilder, perceiving that he was not yet deemed entitled to
entire confidence, continued silent. In this pause, the officer returned,
followed by the black alone. A few words served to explain the condition
of Fid. It was very apparent that the young man was not only disappointed,
but that he was deeply mortified. The frank and ingenuous air, however,
with which he turned to the Rover, to apologize for the dereliction of his
follower, satisfied the latter that he was far from suspecting any
improper agency in bringing about his awkward condition.

"You know the character of seamen too well, sir," he said, "to impute this
oversight to my poor fellow as a heinous fault. A better sailor never lay
on a yard, or stretched a ratlin, than Dick Fid; but I must allow he has
the quality of good fellowship to excess."

"You are fortunate in having one man left you to pull the boat ashore,"
carelessly returned the other.

"I am more than equal to that little exertion myself nor do I like to
separate the men. With your permission, the black shall be birthed, too,
in the ship to-night."

"As you please. Empty hammocks are not scarce among us, since the last
brush."

Wilder then directed the negro to return to his messmate, and to watch
over him so long as he should be unable to look after himself. The black,
who was far from being as clear-headed as common, willingly complied. The
young man then took leave of his companions, and descended into the skiff.
As he pulled, with vigorous arms, away from the dark ship, his eyes were
cast upward, with a seaman's pleasure, on the-order and neatness of her
gear, and thence they fell on the frowning mass of the hull. A
light-built, compact form was seen standing on the heel of the bowsprit,
apparently watching his movements; and, notwithstanding the gloom of the
clouded star-light, he was enabled to detect, in the individual who took
so much apparent interest in his proceedings, the person of the Rover.

Chapter VIII.

----------------"What is yon gentleman?"
Nurse. "The son and heir of old Tiberio."
Juliet. "What's he that follows there, that would not dance?"
Nurse. "Marry, I know not."

_Romeo and Juliet._

The sun was just heaving up, out of the field of waters in which the blue
i