hem. He had speedily taught
himself to think no more of Alethea, but in her stead another young and
pretty form often rose up before him. He met with no one indeed, in his
opinion, to be compared with sweet little Elizabeth Pearson, or rather,
as he believed she should be called, Elise de Mertens. He made up his
mind, therefore, to leave home at a short notice and hasten down to
Portsmouth, where he saw in the columns of the _Post-boy_ that a fleet
was fitting out, under the brave Admiral Benbow, for the West Indies.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

SERVES UNDER BENBOW IN THE WEST INDIES.

It was early in March in the year 1702. As Jack Deane was approaching
London, he heard a postman shouting, "Sad news! sad news!"

"What is it?" asked Jack.

"The king is dead!" was the answer. "Our good King William is no more!"

Jack, on making further inquiry, learned that the king had, on Saturday,
21st, gone out to hunt, as was his custom, near Hampton Court, when his
horse fell, and he fractured his collar-bone. The injury was not
considered serious, and he was conveyed to his palace at Kensington.
Having been, however, in a very weak state, he did not rally, and it was
evident to those around him that he was near his end. On the 8th of
March one of the best and most sagacious of English monarchs breathed
his last, holding the hand of the faithful Duke of Portland. His voice
had gone ere that; but his reason and all his senses were entire to the
last. He died with a clear and full presence of mind, and with a
wonderful tranquillity.

On the accession of Queen Anne, the Jacobites remained quiet, under the
belief that she would leave the crown to the son of James the Second,
now known as the Chevalier Saint George. They were not aware of the
sound Protestant principles of the great mass of Englishmen, and that
any attempt to bring back a Romanist member of the hated House of
Stuart, so often tried and found utterly unfit for ruling, would have
produced another civil war. Those infatuated men, the Jacobites, did
not conceal their joy at the death of the Protestant monarch. Banquets
were held among them to celebrate the event, and some had the audacity
and wickedness, it may be said, to toast the health of the horse which
had thrown William. Another toast they drank was to the health of the
little gentleman dressed in velvet, in other words, the mole that raised
the hill over which Sorel (the king's favourite horse) st