en cleaning assiduously all the morning. On we stood without
shifting our course by a point, and were almost within range when the
schooner ran up the stars-and-stripes and plumped a round shot ahead of
us by way of hint.

I stared at Captain Colenso. Could he mean to surrender without one
blow? He had exchanged his glass for a speaking trumpet, and waited,
fumbling with it, his face twitching painfully. A cold, dishonouring
suspicion gripped me. The man was here to betray his flag. I glanced
aloft: the British ensign flew at the peak. And as I turned my head, I
felt rather than saw the flash, heard the shattering din as the puzzled
American luffed up and let fly across our bows with a raking broadside.
Doubtless she, too, took note of our defiant ensign, and leaped at the
nearest guess that we meant to run her aboard.

Now, whether my glance awoke Captain Colenso, or this was left to the
all but simultaneous voice of the guns, I know not. But as their smoke
rolled between us I saw him drop his trumpet and run with a crazed face
to the taffrail, where the halliards led. The traitor had forgotten to
haul down his flag!

It was too late. While he fumbled with the halliards, a storm of
musketry burst and swept the quarter-deck. He flung up both hands, spun
round upon his heel, and pitched backwards at the helmsman's feet, and
the loosened ensign dropped slowly and fell across him, as if to cover
his shame.

Instantly the firing ceased. I stood there between compassion and
disgust, willing yet loathing to touch the pitiful corpse, when a
woman--Susannah--ran screaming by me and fell on her knees beside it. I
saw a trickle of blood ooze beneath the scarlet folds of the flag. It
crawled along the plank, hesitated at a seam, and grew there to an oddly
shaped pool. I watched it. In shape I thought it remarkably like the map
of Ireland. And I became aware that some one was speaking to me, and
looked up to find a lean and lantern-jawed American come aboard and
standing at my shoulder.

"Are you anywise hard of hearing, stranger? Or must I repeat to you that
this licks cockfighting?"

"I, at any rate, am not disputing it, sir."

"The _Lady Nepean_, too! Is that the Cap'n yonder? I thought as much.
Dead, hey? Well, he'd better _stay_ dead; though I'd have enjoyed the
inside o' five minutes' talk, just to find out what he did it for."

"Did what?"

"Why, brought the _Lady Nepean_ into these waters, and Commodore Rodgers