ly, as Ruby came unexpectedly on them.

"Just so, uncle," said Minnie, with a laugh. "We have here some gin,
smuggled all the way from Holland, and have come to ask your opinion
of it."

"Why, Ruby, how came you by this?" enquired Lindsay in amazement, as
he examined the kegs with critical care.

"Suppose I should say that I have been taken into confidence by the
smugglers and then betrayed them."

"I should reply that the one idea was improbable, and the other
impossible," returned the lieutenant.

"Well, I have at all events found out their secrets, and now I reveal
them."

In a few words Ruby acquainted his friends with all that has just
been narrated.

The moment he had finished, the lieutenant ordered his men to launch
the boat. The kegs were put into the stern-sheets, the party
embarked, and, pushing off, they rowed gently out of the bay, and
crept slowly along the shore, under the deep shadow of the cliffs.

"How dark it is getting!" said Minnie, after they had rowed for some
time in silence.

"The moon will soon be up," said the lieutenant. "Meanwhile I'll cast
a little light on the subject by having a pipe. Will you join me,
captain?"

This was a temptation which the captain never resisted; indeed, he
did not regard it as a temptation at all, and would have smiled at
the idea of resistance.

"Minnie, lass," said he, as he complacently filled the blackened
bowl, and calmly stuffed down the glowing tobacco with the end of
that marvellously callous little finger, "it's a wonderful thing that
baccy. I don't know what man would do without it."

"Quite as well as woman does, I should think," replied Minnie.

"I'm not so sure of that, lass. It's more nat'ral for man to smoke
than for woman. Ye see, woman, lovely woman, should be 'all my fancy
painted her, both lovely and divine'. It would never do to have baccy
perfumes hangin' about her rosy lips."

"But, uncle, why should man have the disagreeable perfumes you speak
of hanging about _his_ lips?"

"I don't know, lass. It's all a matter o' feeling. 'Twere vain to
tell thee all I feel, how much my heart would wish to say;' but of
this I'm certain sure, that I'd never git along without my pipe.
It's like compass, helm, and ballast all in one. Is that the moon,
leftenant?"

The captain pointed to a faint gleam of light on the horizon, which
he knew well enough to be the moon; but he wished to change the
subject.

"Ay is it, and there comes a boat