with excitement.

"Well--after all!" Sebright mumbled.

"I must go in and tell her," I said.

"No. Don't do that," said that wise young man. "Have you made up your
mind?"

"Yes, I have," I answered. "But she's reasonable."

"Still," he argued, "the old girl is sure to say that nothing of the
kind is necessary. The captain told her that he was coming back for tea.
What could we say to that? We can't explain the true state of the case,
and if you persist in going, it will look like pig-headed folly on your
part."

He threw his writing-desk open for me.

"Write to her. Write down your arguments--what you have been telling me.
It's a fact that the door stands open for a few hours. As to the rest,"
he pursued, with a weary sigh, "I'll do the lying to pass it off with
Mrs. Williams."

Thus it came about that, with only two flimsy bulkheads between us, I
wrote my first letter to Seraphina, while Sebright went on deck to make
arrangements to send me ashore. He was some time away; long enough for
me to pour out on paper the exultation of my thought, the confidence of
my hope, my desire to have her safe at last with me upon the blue sea.
One must seize a propitious moment lest it should slip away and never
return, I wrote. I begged her to believe I was acting for the best, and
only from my great love, that could not support the thought of her being
so near O'Brien, the arch-enemy of our union. There was no separation on
the sea.

Sebright came in brusquely.

"Come along."

The American brigantine was berthed by then, close astern of the _Lion_,
and Sebright had the idea of asking her mate to let his boat (it was in
the water) put ashore a visitor he had on board. His own were hoisted,
he explained, and there were no boatmen plying for hire.

His request was granted. I was pulled ashore by two American sailors,
who never said a word to each other, and evidently took me for a
Spaniard.

It was an excellent idea. By borrowing the Yankee's boat, the track of
my connection with the _Lion_ was covered. The silent seamen landed me,
as asked by Sebright, near the battery on the sand, quite clear of the
city.

I thanked them in Spanish, and, traversing a piece of open ground, made
a wide circle to enter the town from the land side, to still further
cover my tracks. I passed through a sort of squalid suburb of huts,
hovels, and negro shanties. I met very few people, and these mostly old
women, looking after the swarms