considered himself fortunate in
having an opportunity of engaging an enemy's ship of sixty guns or more.
In a short time the sails of the chase and her pursuer disappeared
below the horizon. The night closed in and passed away; the next day
drew on and we saw nothing of the Hussar. Another day passed away and
she did not make her appearance. Conjectures as to what had become of
her now formed the general subject of conversation on board, but, like
all conjectures, when there is no data on which to build up a
conclusion, we always left off where we began, and waited till she came
back, if ever she should do so, to tell her own tale.

O'Driscoll and I had now become great friends. I own that I wanted some
one to whom I could talk to about my love for Madeline. With all his
fun and humour and harum-scarum manner, he was a thoroughly honourable
right-minded fellow, and I knew that I could trust him. He was
delighted with the romance of the affair.

"If you can but point our where she is, by hook or by crook, I'll help
you to win her," said he, in his full rich irish brogue. "You've
already a pretty lot of prize-money, and please the pigs you'll pick up
not a little more before long. Where there's a will there's a way,
that's one comfort; and, by my faith, what I've seen of some of those
little rebel colonists, they are well worth winning."

It may amuse my sober-minded readers, when they reflect on all the
difficulties, not to say impossibilities, which existed in my way, to
think that O'Driscoll and I should ever dream of overcoming them. But
they must remember that we were both very young, and that in the navy
such things as impossibilities are not allowed to exist. During how
many a midnight watch did my love serve me as a subject for
contemplation, and, when I was occasionally joined by O'Driscoll, for
conversation also! Although I was on excellent terms with the rest of
my brother-officers, I never felt inclined to open out to any of them.
Perhaps it was a weakness in me to do so even to O'Driscoll, and, as a
general rule, I think a man is wise to keep such thoughts to himself.

Day after day passed by and our missing consort did not make her
appearance. A whole week elapsed, and we began to entertain serious
apprehensions about her, and to fear that she had been captured. Our
course had been so direct, and the weather so fine, that she would have
had no difficulty, we considered, in rejoining us. At