itable _Vestale_, French gun-brig, which we know to
be cruising in these waters. Secondly, her very extraordinary
resemblance to the _Black Venus_, which, as you are aware, I have seen,
absolutely _compels_ me, against my better judgment, to the belief that
the two brigs are, in some mysterious way, intimately associated
together, if, indeed, they are not absolutely _one and the same vessel_.
And thirdly, my suspicion that the latter is the case receives strong
confirmation from the fact that on _both_ occasions when we have been
after the one--the _Black Venus_--we have encountered the other--the
_Vestale_."

Mr Austin stared at me in a very peculiar way for a few minutes, and
then said:

"Well, Hawkesley, your last assertion is undoubtedly true; but what does
it prove? It can be nothing more than a curious coincidence."

"So I have assured myself over and over again, when my suspicions were
strengthened by the first occurrence of the coincidence; and so I shall
doubtless assure myself over and over again during the next few days," I
replied. "But if a coincidence only it is certainly curious that it
should have occurred on two occasions."

"I am not quite prepared to admit that," said the first lieutenant.
"And, then, as to the remarkable resemblance between the two vessels, do
you not think, now, honestly, Hawkesley, that your very extraordinary
suspicions may have magnified that resemblance?"

"No," said I; "I do not. I only wish Mr Smellie had been on deck just
now to have caught a glimpse of that inexplicable brig; he would have
borne convincing testimony to the marvellous likeness between them.
Why, sir, but for the white ribbon round the one, and the difference in
the figure-heads, the two craft would be positively indistinguishable;
so completely so, indeed, that poor Richards was actually unable to
believe the evidence of his own senses, and, I firmly believe, was
convinced of the identity of the two vessels."

"Indeed!" said Mr Austin in a tone of great surprise. "That is news to
me. So Richards shared your suspicions, did he?"

"He did, indeed, sir," I replied. "It was, in fact, his extraordinary
demeanour on the occasion of our second encounter with the _Vestale_--
you will remember the circumstance, sir?--which confirmed my suspicions;
suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration
of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of the
_Pensacola_