not assist you there either; for we seamen know
little of what happens outside the ship's planks," returned the Maltese.
"It is not often, though, one goes long in these seas without meeting
with a cruiser of our own country, and as for merchantmen they are thick
enough; but neither one nor the other are likely to come to such
out-of-the-way islands as these are."

"When will that man have finished selling his fish there?" sang out the
officer of the watch. "Manuel, there--Tell him, as soon as he's done,
to shove off. We ought not to hold any communication with the natives,"
he muttered to himself, as he continued his quarter-deck walk. "These
fellows are as sharp as knives, and, if we let them near us, they'll be
ferreting out something they ought not to know to a certainty."

"Ay, ay, sir," replied Manuel. "Come, Mister Fisherman, the officer
says you must not be standing talking here all day, so I'll wish you
farewell, and a good haul the next time you let down your nets."

"Thanks, friend, I am generally tolerably successful in that way,"
answered the pretended fisherman. "Farewell, I shall come alongside
again to-morrow, and I hope to find plenty of buyers. I live a little
way down the coast, and shall sure to be back, so do not buy of any one
else. Caralambro Boboti is my name. Don't forget it. Farewell,
again--"

Just as he was uttering these words, and making the usual salaam to the
poop, or rather to the officers walking on it, his eye lighted on the
countenance of a man ascending the companion-ladder which made even him
for an instant turn pale. At first the idea glanced across his mind
that he saw an apparition, but the shoulders and the body and legs came
next, and he was soon convinced that the person before him was real
flesh and blood. No less a person, indeed, than Colonel Gauntlett
ascended from below closely followed by his man Mitchell, and stood on
the deck of the _Ione_, glaring at him with a look which convinced him
that he was recognised through his disguise. There was not a moment to
be lost. If he remained where he stood, the probability was that he
would be seized; if he exhibited any fear or hurry, it would be
equivalent to condemning himself, and he and his companions would be
shot without mercy, as they attempted to escape. He felt at once that
his only chance depended on his own coolness so as to make the old
officer fancy that he was mistaken in his identity. With the mos