cat, and
one day Dicky came in to me and said: `Father, pussy's in the garden
asleep, and I can't wake her.' So I just took him out for a walk; there
was a circus in the town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind
that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell
him she was buried in the garden, I just said she must have run away.
In a week he had forgotten all about her--children soon forget."

"Ay, that's true," said the sea captain. "But 'pears to me they must
learn some time they've got to die."

"Should I pay the penalty before we reach land, and be cast into that
great, vast sea, I would not wish the children's dreams to be haunted
by the thought: just tell them I've gone on board another ship. You
will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter, the name of a
lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off, as far as worldly
goods are concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just tell them I've gone on
board another ship--children soon forget."

"I'll do what you ask," said the seaman.

The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift in
a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef point on the
great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut by shadows
black as ebony.

As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a
little white figure emerged from the saloon hatch. It was Emmeline. She
was a professed sleepwalker--a past mistress of the art.

Scarcely had she stepped into dreamland than she had lost her precious
box, and now she was hunting for it on the decks of the Northumberland.

Mr Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes and
silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope, she tried to
open the galley door; hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and
troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hencoop, she found
her visionary treasure. Then back she came, holding up her little
nightdress with one hand, so as not to trip, and vanished down the
saloon companion very hurriedly, as if anxious to get back to bed, her
uncle close behind, with one hand outstretched so as to catch her in
case she stumbled.

CHAPTER III

THE SHADOW AND THE FIRE

It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on
the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to
read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony had
reduced even Dicky to ju