ve
recorded to the reader was to ensue.

The distance to the ruins was not so great from this cottage even as it
was from Bannerworth Hall, provided those who went knew the most direct
and best road to take; so that the admiral was not gone above a couple
of hours, and when he returned he sat down and looked at Charles with
such a peculiar expression, that the latter could not for the life of
him tell what to make of it.

[Illustration]

"Something has happened, uncle," he said, "I am certain; tell me at once
what it is."

"Oh! nothing, nothing," said the admiral, "of any importance."

"Is that what you call your feelings?" said Jack Pringle. "Can't you
tell him as there came on a squall last night, and the ruins have come
in with a dab upon old Marchdale, crushing his guts, so that we smelt
him as soon as we got nigh at band?"

"Good God!" said Charles, "has such a catastrophe occurred?"

"Yes, Charles, that's just about the catastrophe that has occurred. He's
dead; and rum enough it is that it should happen on the very night that
you escaped."

"Rum!" said Jack, suddenly; "my eye, who mentions rum? What a singular
sort of liquor rum must be. I heard of a chap as used to be fond of it
once on board a ship; I wonder if there's any in the house."

"No!" said the admiral; "but there's a fine pump of spring water outside
if you feel a little thirsty, Jack; and I'll engage it shall do you more
good than all the rum in the world."

"Uncle," said Charles, "I'm glad to hear you make that observation."

"What for?"

"Why, to deal candidly with you, uncle, Jack informed me that you had
lately taken quite a predilection for drinking."

"Me!" cried the admiral; "why the infernal rascal, I've had to threaten
him with his discharge a dozen times, at least, on that very ground, and
no other."

"There's somebody calling me," said Jack. "I'm a coming! I'm a coming!"
and, so he bolted out of the room, just in time to escape an inkstand,
which the admiral caught up and flung after him.

"I'll strike that rascal off the ship's books this very day," muttered
Admiral Bell. "The drunken vagabond, to pretend that I take anything,
when all the while it's himself!"

"Well, well, I ought certainly to have suspected the quarter from whence
the intelligence came; but he told it to me so circumstantially, and
with such an apparent feeling of regret for the weakness into which he
said you had fallen, that I really thought there