l permit those wretches to
murder us in cold blood. He will surely inspire you with an idea that
will enable you to defeat and prevent an act of such atrocious
wickedness; and I have a sure conviction that in His own good time we
shall be accorded a happy deliverance out of all our troubles, and that
you will by and by enjoy the satisfaction of happily reuniting me to my
dear father--and receiving the usual reward accorded to the
all-conquering prince in the fairy tale."

"God grant it, my dearest!" I exclaimed fervently, as I kissed her.
"And now," said I, "I must go on deck, I suppose, and endeavour to
appear as though I had not a care in the world; for if those fellows
notice that I am looking gloomy and preoccupied, they will at once guess
that I suspect something, and may in that case so precipitate their
plans as to render our case more desperate than ever."

"We will go together," said the brave girl, "and you shall have an
example of the deep duplicity of which I am capable. I will defy any
one of them to detect the faintest shadow of care on my brow!"

And therewith she retired to her cabin, and presently emerged again,
attired for the deck.

It was a glorious morning of true Pacific weather, with the wind blowing
a merry breeze from about west-north-west; the sky, an exquisitely pure
and delicate turquoise blue, flecked with patches of fleecy,
prismatic-tinted cloud that here and there darkened the sapphire of the
sparkling, foam-flecked ocean with broad spaces of deep, rich, violet
shadow. As for the brig, she was swarming along at a nine-knot pace
under all plain sail supplemented by her starboard studding-sail, with
her mast-heads sweeping in wide arcs athwart the blue as she swayed and
rose and sank in long, floating rushes over the rugged ridges of the
pursuing swell, while dazzling sunshine and purple shadow chased each
other in and out of the hollows of her canvas and athwart her grimy
decks. There was a thin, eddying coil of bluish smoke hurrying from the
galley chimney under the high-arching foot of the fore-course and out
over the port cat-head; and the watch, having no sail-trimming to attend
to, were squatted upon their hams on the fore deck, playing cards. The
hooker needed no looking after in such weather as this, and the only
individual, beside ourselves, abaft the mainmast was the helmsman.

Miss Onslow's appearance on deck never failed to attract the notice of
the men, although she