ay
day--ugh!"

"Extremely touching," said Jack, smiling.

"Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had
become of the sloop, he said that he knew nothing at all about the
sloop, and swore that he had never set his eyes on my figure-head
before, the varmint--ugh!"

"Odd," remarked Jack.

"Are you sure of your man?" inquired Fritz.

"But you say his name is Bill, whilst he declares his name is Bob."

"Aye, he has evidently been up to some mischief, and changed his
ticket."

"Then what conclusion do you draw from the affair."

"I am completely bewildered, and scarcely know what to think; perhaps
the crew has mutinied, and turned Captain Littlestone adrift on a
desert island. That is sometimes done. Perhaps--"

"It is no use perhapsing those sort of melancholy things," said Fritz;
"we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is
safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some
misdemeanour."

"May be, may be, Master Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to
have an old comrade amongst us, who could give us all the information
we want, and yet not to be able to get a single thing out of him--"

"Except a punch in the ribs," suggested Jack.

"Exactly; and a punch that will not let me forget the lubber in a
hurry," added Willis, clenching his fist; "but I intend, in the
meantime, to keep my weather eye open."

A few weeks after this episode the _Hoboken_ was slowly wending her
way along the bights of the Bahamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were
walking and chatting on the quarter-deck. The sky was of a deep azure.
The sea was covered with herbs and flowers as far as the eye could
reach--sometimes in compact masses of several miles in extent, and at
other times in long straight ribbons, as regular as if they had been
spread by some West Indian Le Notre. The ship seemed merely displaying
her graces in the sunshine, so gentle was she moving in the water. The
air was laden with perfumes, and a soft dreamy languor stole over the
friends, which they were trying in vain to shake off. In one direction
rose the misty heights of St. Domingo, and in another the cloud-capped
summits of Cuba. Sometimes the highest peaks of the latter pierced the
veil that enveloped them, and seemed like islands floating in the sky,
or heads of a race of giants.

"The air here is almost as balmy and fragrant as that of New
Switzerland," remarked Fritz.

"Aye, aye," said the Pilot; "bu