en buried beyond all discovery in "Bel-a-faire-peur"
of the 2nd Chasseurs d'Afrique. When, on the Marseilles rails, the
maceration and slaughter of as terrible an accident as ever befell a
train rushing through the midnight darkness, at headlong speed, had left
himself and the one man faithful to his fortunes unharmed by little
less than a miracle; he had seen in the calamity the surest screen from
discovery or pursuit.

Leaving the baggage where it was jammed among the debris, he had struck
across the country with Rake for the few leagues that still lay between
them and the city, and had entered Marseilles as weary foot travelers,
before half the ruin on the rails had been seen by the full noon sun.

As it chanced a trading yawl was loading in the port, to run across to
Algiers that very day. The skipper was short of men, and afraid of the
Lascars, who were the only sailors that he seemed likely to find to fill
up the vacant places in his small crew.

Cecil offered himself and his comrade for the passage. He had only a
very few gold pieces on his person, and he was willing to work his way
across, if he could.

"But you're a gentleman," said the skipper, doubtfully eyeing him, and
his velvet dress, and his black sombrero with its eagle's plume. "I want
a rare, rough, able seaman, for there'll like to be foul weather. She
looks too fair to last," he concluded, with a glance upward at the sky.

He was a Liverpool man, master and owner of his own rakish-looking
little black-hulled craft, that, rumor was wont to say, was not averse
to a bit of slaving, if she found herself in far seas, with a likely run
before her.

"You're a swell, that's what you are," emphasized the skipper. "You
bean't no sort of use to me."

"Wait a second," answered Cecil. "Did you ever chance to hear of a
schooner called 'Regina'?"

The skipper's face lighted in a moment.

"Her as was in the Biscay, July come two years? Her as drove through
the storm like a mad thing, and flew like a swallow, when everything was
splitting and foundering, and shipping seas around her? Her as was the
first to bear down to the great 'Wrestler,' a-lying there hull over in
water, and took aboard all as ever she could hold o' the passengers;
a-pitching out her own beautiful cabin fittings to have as much room for
the poor wretches as ever she could? Be you a-meaning her?"

Cecil nodded assent.

"She was my yacht, that's all; and I was without a captain through