ilor; at least,
he had not been one the last time he had met him, and it was hardly
possible that he had learned seamanship, navigation, and naval tactics
in so short a time, and so far as Christy knew, with little practical
experience.

He had seen the commission which Corny presented to the captain of the
Vernon, and recognized it as his own. In spite of the statements his
cousin had made, Christy saw that the handwriting of the report he
submitted as a copy of the genuine document was in Corny's usual
handwriting. Where had he obtained the commission, and where the
original report? These were not hard questions, now that the
preliminaries of the plot had been fully developed.

Walsh, the man-servant at Bonnydale, was now a seaman on board of the
Vernon, under the real or assumed name of Byron. He denied his identity,
as he would naturally do under the circumstances; but Christy had not
a doubt that he was the man who had suddenly disappeared after the
mysterious visitation of the night before. Doubtless, Corny had been the
visitor at the mansion, and had procured the contents of the official
envelope on this occasion.

He appeared to have been unwilling to trust Byron, as the seaman
preferred to be called, and had attended to the business in person with
the assistance of his confederate. The report was lying on the table in
his chamber, and Byron could have borrowed it for any length of time to
enable Corny to make a copy. Whoever had visited his chamber in the
night, whether Corny or the man-servant, he must have taken the official
envelope to the library, or some other part of the house, for it had
been carefully opened, and restored to its former condition after the
genuine documents in it had been replaced by the blank paper.

It was now all as clear to Christy as though he had observed the
proceedings of the conspirators, and taken notes of all they had done.
The purpose of all these operations was quite as obvious as the details
of the scheme. Either the Vernon or the Bronx was to be captured,
perhaps both, for of course Christy could not determine in what manner
the mischief was to be accomplished. Prisoner of war as he was, he never
felt burdened with a greater responsibility than when he realized the
actual situation.

This responsibility was not of a personal nature. He did not have the
feeling that he had been vanquished in the contest before the captain,
and the fact that he was a prisoner hardly di