back in your cage before one o'clock! What say you to that,
Sambo?"

The faithful native opened his huge mouth wide, and shut his eyes,
thereby indicating that he laughed; but he said nothing, bad, good, or
indifferent, to his master's facetious observation. The other natives
also grinned, in a quiet but particularly knowing manner, after which
the whole party relapsed into profound silence, and kept their midnight
watch with exemplary patience and eager expectation.

At this same hour the pirate captain was seated in his cell on the edge
of the low bedstead, with his elbows resting on his knees and his face
buried in his hands.

The cell was profoundly dark,--so dark that the figure of the prisoner
could scarcely be distinguished.

Gascoyne did not move for many minutes; but once or twice a deep sigh
escaped him, showing that, although his body was at rest, his thoughts
were busy. At last he moved, and clasped his hands together violently,
as if under a strong impulse. In doing so, the clank of his chains
echoed harshly through the cell. This seemed to change the current of
his thoughts; for he again covered his face with both hands, and began
to mutter to himself.

"Aye," said he, "it has come at last. How often I have dreamed of this
when I was free and roaming over the wide ocean! I would say that I have
been a fool did I not feel that I have more cause to bow my head and
confess that I am a sinner. Ah, what a thing pride is! How little do men
know what it has cost me to humble myself before them as I have done!
yet I feel no shame in confessing it here, where I am all alone.
Alone?--_am_ I alone?"

For a long time Gascoyne sat in deep silence, as if he were following
out the train of thought which had been suggested by the last words.
Presently his ideas again found vent in muttered speech.

"In my pride I have said that there is no God. I don't think I ever
believed that; but I tried to believe it, for I knew that my deeds were
evil. Surely my own words will condemn me; for I have said that I think
myself a fool, and does not the Bible say that 'the fool hath said in
his heart there is no God?' Aye, I remember it well. The words were
printed in my brain when I learned the Psalms of David at my mother's
knee, long, long ago. My mother! what bitter years have passed since
that day! How little did ye dream, mother, that your child would come to
_this_! God help me!"

The pirate relapsed into silence, and a