water-kegs. The
lighthouse-keeper was kind to them, for they were foreigners, and showed
them all over the lighthouse, and when they got to the very top they
found the monkey dusting the lamps just like a human being. The sailors
were much astonished, and one of them, who could speak a little English,
wanted to buy Tricky for two pounds. When the lighthouse-keeper heard
this he was very angry, and ordered them all down the ladder. This made
the men angry in turn, for they did not know the reason why the
lighthouse-keeper loved the monkey, and they told him they would not
forget the way he had insulted them. Of course he had not insulted them
at all, but foreign sailors are sometimes quick-tempered, and these men
came from a country where slights are easily felt. The sailors spent the
whole day on shore, as the wind was unfavourable for getting out to sea,
but no one saw them enter the lighthouse again. Next morning, all that
the lighthouse-keeper saw of the sailors and their ship was the tips of
their top-gallants dipping over the horizon edge. And all that he saw of
the monkey that--would--not--kill, after searching night and day for a
week was--nothing.

CHAPTER II

Mr. Donald MacAlsh, gold-miner from Silver Creek, California, happening
to be in San Francisco, read one morning the following paragraph in the
_San Francisco Herald_:--

'Curious Tale of The Sea.--Captain J. E. Dawkins of the _Mermaid_,
which has just arrived in this port from Liverpool, reports a
singular occurrence. About ten days' out from home the look-out
observed what he took to be a great sea-serpent, but which, on
further inspection, turned out to be a quantity of wreckage. On
approaching the spot the figure of a boy was distinctly observed
clinging to the broken portion of a mast, and obviously still alive.
A small boat was instantly lowered, the ship's crew meantime making
signals to the boy to inform him that he was being rescued. After a
suspense of some half-hour the boat returned with the extraordinary
intelligence that the figure seen was not that of a boy, but of a
monkey. Search among the wreckage for human remains proved
unavailing, and it is feared that a serious catastrophe has
occurred. The only clue to the nationality of the vessel, which, it
is only too plain, has met with a disastrous fate, are the letters
"vorni" on a portion of what had evidently formed t