h which a gentleman owes to all your sex, Madam, what I have
already told you I still continue to believe."

"The gammonings and the top-gallant-masts!"

"No, no," interrupted the young mariner, slightly laughing, and at the
same time colouring a good deal; "perhaps not all of that. But neither
mother, wife, nor sister of mine, should make this passage in the 'Royal
Caroline.'"

"Your look, your voice, and your air of good faith, make a strange
contradiction to your words, young man; for, while the former almost tempt
me to believe you honest, the latter have not a shade of reason to support
them. Perhaps I ought to be ashamed of such a weakness, and yet I will
acknowledge that the mysterious quiet, which seems to have settled for
ever on yonder ship, has excited an inexplicable uneasiness, that may in
some way be connected with her character.--She is certainly a slaver?"

"She is certainly beautiful!" exclaimed Gertrude.

"Very beautiful!" Wilder gravely rejoined.

"There is a man still seated on one of her yards who appears to be
entranced in his occupation," continued Mrs Wyllys, leaning her chin
thoughtfully on her hand, as she gazed at the object of which she was
speaking. "Not once, during the time we were in so much danger of getting
the ships entangled, did that seaman bestow so much as a stolen glance
towards us. He resembles the solitary individual in the city of the
transformed; for not another mortal is there to keep him company, so far
as we may discover."

"Perhaps his comrades sleep," said Gertrude.

"Sleep! Mariners do not sleep in an hour and a day like this! Tell me, Mr
Wilder, (you that are a seaman should know), is it usual for the crew to
sleep when a strange vessel is so nigh--near even to touching, I might
almost say?"

"It is not."

"I thought as much; for I am not an entire novice in matters of your
daring, your hardy, your _noble_ profession!" returned the governess, with
deep emphasis "And, had we gone foul of the slaver, do you think her crew
would have maintained their apathy?"

"I think not, Madam."

"There is something, in all this assumed tranquillity, which might induce
one to suspect the worst of her character. Is it known that any of her
crew have had communication with the town, since her arrival?"

"It is."

"I have heard that false colours have been seen on the coast, and that
ships have been plundered, and their people and passengers maltreated,
during the past su