posal, and it was agreed they should return to Bannerworth Hall in
company.

Here they arrived in a very short time after, and entered together.

"And now," said Mr. Chillingworth, "I will go and bring our two
principals, who will be as much astonished to find themselves engaged in
the same quarrel, as I was to find myself sent on a similar errand to
Sir Francis with our friend Mr. John Pringle."

"Oh, not John--Jack Pringle, you mean," said that individual.

Chillingworth now went in search of Henry, and sent him to the apartment
where Mr. Marchdale was with Jack Pringle, and then he found the admiral
waiting the return of Jack with impatience.

"Admiral!" he said, "I perceive you are unwell this morning."

"Unwell be d----d," said the admiral, starting up with surprise. "Who
ever heard that old admiral Bell looked ill just afore he was going into
action? I say it's a scandalous lie."

"Admiral, admiral, I didn't say you were ill; only you looked ill--a--a
little nervous, or so. Rather pale, eh? Is it not so?"

"Confound you, do you think I want to be physicked? I tell you, I have
not a little but a great inclination to give you a good keelhauling. I
don't want a doctor just yet."

"But it may not be so long, you know, admiral; but there is Jack Pringle
a-waiting you below. Will you go to him? There is a particular reason;
he has something to communicate from Sir Francis Varney, I believe."

The admiral gave a look of some amazement at Mr. Chillingworth, and then
he said, muttering to himself,--

"If Jack Pringle should have betrayed me--but, no; he could not do that,
he is too true. I'm sure of Jack; and how did that son of a gallipot
hint about the odd fish I sent Jack to?"

Filled with a dubious kind of belief which he had about something he had
heard of Jack Pringle, he entered the room, where he met Marchdale, Jack
Pringle, and Henry Bannerworth. Immediately afterwards, Mr.
Chillingworth entered the apartment.

"I have," said he, "been to Sir Francis Varney, and there had an
interview with him, and with Mr. Pringle; when I found we were both
intent upon the same object, namely, an encounter with the knight by our
principals."

"Eh?" said the admiral.

"What!" exclaimed Henry; "had he challenged you, admiral?"

"Challenged me!" exclaimed Admiral Bell, with a round oath.
"I--however--since it comes to this, I must admit I challenged him."

"That's what I did," said Henry Bannerworth, after a mome