he walked steadily up to Ithuel, removed the wig,
and permitted the eel-skin queue to resume its natural position on the
back of its owner.

"Ha!--What, veechy," exclaimed Cuffe, laughing--"you unearth them like
so many foxes to-night. Now, Griffin, hang me if I do not think I've
seen that chap before! Isn't he the very man we found at the wheel of la
Voltigeuse, when we boarded her?"

"Lord bless me, Captain Cuffe--no, sir. This fellow is as long as two of
that chap--and yet I know the face too. I wish you'd let me send for one
of the young gentlemen, sir; they're worth all the rest of the ship at
remembering faces."

The permission was given, and the cabin-steward was sent on deck to
desire Mr. Roller, one of the oldest midshipmen, and who was known to
have the watch, to come below.

"Look at this fellow, Mr. Roller," said Griffin, as soon as the
youngster had taken his place in the group, "and tell us if you can make
anything of him."

"It's the lazy-rony, sir, we hoisted in a bit ago when we struck the
boat on deck."

"Aye, no doubt of that--but we think we have seen his face before;--can
_you_ make that out?"

Roller now walked round the immovable subject of all these remarks; and
he, too, began to think the singular-looking object was no stranger to
him. As soon, however, as he got a sight of the queue, he struck Ithuel
a smart slap on the shoulder and exclaimed:

"You're welcome back, my lad! I hope you'll find your berth aloft as
much to your mind as it used to be. This is Bolt, Captain Cuffe, the
foretop-man, who ran from us when last in England, was caught and put in
a guard-ship, from which they sent us word he stole a boat and got off
with two or three French prisoners, who happened to be there at the
moment on some inquiry or other. Don't you remember it all, Mr.
Griffin--you may remember the fellow pretended to be an American."

Ithuel was now completely exposed, and he at once perceived that his
wisest way was to submit. Cuffe's countenance darkened, for he regarded
a deserter with a species of professional horror, and the impressed
deserter, to whose services England had no other right than that of
might, with an additional degree of resentment, that was very fairly
proportioned to the inward consciousness he felt that a great wrong was
done in detaining the man at all. There is nothing extraordinary in
these feelings; a very common resource, under such circumstances, being
to imagine delinqu