hey exerted themselves, with
small spars and boathooks, to push the drogher off. Nobody seemed to
recognize me; Seraphina might have been a peon sitting on deck, cloaked
from neck to heels and under a sombrero. I dared not shout to them in
English, for fear of being heard on board the other ships around. At
last Sebright himself appeared on the poop.

He gave one look over the side.

"What the devil..." he began. Was he blind, too?

Suddenly I saw him throw up his arms above his head. He vanished. A port
came open with a jerk at the last moment. I lifted Seraphina up: two
hands caught hold of her, and, in my great hurry to scramble up after
her, I barked my shins cruelly. The port fell; the drogher went on
bumping alongside, completely disregarded. Seraphina dropped the cloak
at her feet and flung off her hat.

"Good-morning, _amigos_," she said gravely.

A hissed "Damn you fools--keep quiet!" from Sebright, stifled the cheer
in all those bronzed throats. Only a thin little poor "hooray" quavered
along the deck. The timid steward had not been able to overcome his
enthusiasm. He slapped his head in despair, and rushed away to bury
himself in his pantry.

"Turned up, by heavens!... Go in.... Good God!... Bucketfuls of
tears...." stammered Sebright, pushing us into the cuddy. "Go in! Go in
at once!"

Mrs. Williams rose from behind the table wide-eyed, clasping her hands,
and stumbled twice as she ran to us.

"What have you done to that child, Mr. Kemp!" she cried insanely at me.
"Oh, my dear, my dear! You look like your own ghost."

Sebright, burning with impatience, pulled me away. The cabin door fell
upon the two women, locked in a hug, and, stepping into his stateroom,
we could do nothing at first but slap each other on the back and
ejaculate the most unmeaning exclamations, like a couple of jocular
idiots. But when, in the expansion of my heart, I tried to banter him
about not keeping his word to look out for us, he bent double in trying
to restrain his hilarity, slapped his thighs, and grew red in the face.

The excellent joke was that, for the past six days, we had been supposed
to be dead--drowned; at least Dona Seraphina had been provided with that
sort of death in her own name; I was drowned, too, but in the disguise
of a piratical young English nobleman.

"There's nothing too bad for them to believe of us," he commented, and
guffawed in his joy at seeing me unscathed. "Dead! Drowned! Ha! Ha!
Good, w