hat weighs me to
the earth. Your inexplicable conduct and cruel indifference have heaped it
on my feelings, Alida. You have said that there is no hope for Oloff Van
Staats; and one syllable, spoken with your native ingenuousness and
sincerity, has had the effect to blow all my apprehensions from that
quarter to the winds. There remains only to account for your absence, to
resume the whole of your power over one who is but too readily disposed to
confide in all you say or do."

La belle Barberie seemed touched. Her glance at the young sailor was
kinder, and her voice wanted some of its ordinary steadiness, in the
reply.

"That power has then been weakened?"

"You will despise me, if I say no;--you will distrust me, if I say yes."

"Then silence seems the course best adapted to maintain our present
amity.--Surely I heard a blow struck, lightly, on the shutter of that
window?"

"Hope sometimes deceives us. This repeated belief would seem to say that
you expect a visiter?"

A distinct tap on the shutter confirmed the impression of the mistress of
the pavilion. Alida looked at her companion, and appeared embarrassed.
Her color varied, and she seemed anxious to utter something that either
her feelings or her prudence suppressed.

"Captain Ludlow, you have once before been an unexpected witness of an
interview in la Cour des Fees, that has, I fear, subjected me to
unfavorable surmises. But one manly and generous as yourself can have
indulgence for the little vanities of woman. I expect a visit, that
perhaps a Queen's officer should not countenance."

"I am no exciseman, to pry into wardrobes and secret repositories, but one
whose duty it is to act only on the high seas, and against the more open
violators of the law. If you have any without, whose presence you desire,
let them enter without dread of my office. When we meet in a more suitable
place, I shall know how to take my revenge."

His companion looked grateful, and bowed her acknowledgments. She then
made a ringing sound, by using a spoon on the interior of one of the
vessels of the tea equipage. The shrubbery, which shaded a window,
stirred; and presently, the young stranger, already so well known in the
former pages of this work, and in the scenes of the brigantine, appeared
in the low balcony. His person was scarcely seen, before a light bale of
goods was tossed past him, into the centre of the room.

"I send my certificate of character as an avant-courier