ted, with
a faint smile towards Seraphina). I had no money, no friends (except my
friends in this cabin, he was good enough to say); warrants out against
me in Jamaica; no means to get to England; no safety in the ship. It was
no use shirking that little fact. We must leave the _Lion_. This was a
hopeless enough position. But it was hopeless only because it was
not looked upon in the right way. We assumed that we had to leave her
forever, while the whole secret of the trick was in this, that we need
only leave her for a time. After O'Brien's myrmidons had gone through
her, and had been hooted away empty-handed, she became again, if not
absolutely safe, then at least possible--the only possible refuge
for us--the only decent means of reaching England together, where, he
understood, our trouble would cease. Williams nodded approval heavily.

"The friends of Miss Riego would be glad to know she had made the
passage under the care of a respectable married lady," Sebright
explained, in that imperturbable manner of his, which reflected
faintly all his inner moods--whether of recklessness, of jocularity
or anxiety--and often his underlying scorn. His gravity grew perfectly
portentous. "Mrs. Williams," he continued, "was, of course, very anxious
to do her part creditably. As it happened, the _Lion_ was chartered for
London this voyage; and notwithstanding her natural desire to rejoin, as
soon as possible, her home and her aged uncle in Bristol, she intended
to go with the young lady in a hackney coach to the very door."

I had previously told them that the lately appointed Spanish ambassador
in London was a relation of the Riegos, and personally acquainted with
Seraphina, who, nearly two years before, had been on a short visit to
Spain, and had lived for some months with his family _in_ Madrid, I
believe. No trouble or difficulty was to be apprehended as to proper
recognition, or in the mattei of rights and inheritance, and so on. The
ambassador would make that his own affair. And for the rest I trusted
the decision of her character and the strength of her affection. I was
not afraid she would let any one talk her out of an engagement, the
dying wish of her nearest kinsman, sealed, as it were, with the blood of
her father. This matter of temporary absence from the _Lion_, however,
seemed to present an insuperable difficulty. We could not, obviously, be
left for days floating in an open boat outside Havana harbour, waiting
till