pany
except the cook, and his place must be taken by your maid.' 'What do
you mean?' she asked, looking at me with her wide-opened, beautiful
eyes.

"Then, as there was no help for it, I told her everything, except that
I did not mention the Water-devil in connection with our marvellous
stoppage. I only said that that was caused by something which nobody
understood.

"She did not sit down and cover her head, nor did she scream or faint.
She turned pale, but looked steadily at me, and her voice did not shake
as she asked me what was to be done. 'There is nothing to be done,' I
answered, 'but to keep up good hearts, eat three meals a day, and wait
until a ship comes along and takes us off.'

"She stood silent for about three minutes. 'I think,' she then said,
'that I will not yet tell my father what has happened'; and she went
below.

"Now, strange to say, I walked up and down the deck with my hat cocked
on one side and my hands in my pockets, feeling a great deal better. I
did not like Water-devils any more than I did before, and I did not
believe in this one any less than I did before, but, after all, there
was some good about him. It seems odd, but the arm of this submarine
monster, over a mile long for all that I knew, was a bond of union
between the lovely Miss Minturn and me. She was a lady; I was a marine.
So far as I knew anything about bonds of union, there wasn't one that
could have tackled itself to us two, except this long, slippery arm of
the Water-devil, with one end in the monstrous flob at the bottom, and
the other fast to our ship.

"There was no doubt about it, if it hadn't been for that Water-devil
she would have been no more to me than the Queen of Madagascar was; but
under the circumstances, if I wasn't everything to her, who could be
anything--that is, if one looked at the matter from a practical point
of view?"

The blacksmith made a little movement of impatience. "Suppose you cut
all that," said he. "I don't care about the bond of union; I want to
know what happened to the ship."

"It is likely," said the marine, "if I could have cut the bond of union
that I spoke of, that is to say, the Water-devil's arm, that I would
have done it, hoping that I might safely float off somewhere with Miss
Minturn; but I couldn't cut it then, and I can't cut it now. That bond
is part of my story, and it must all go on together.

"I now set myself to work to do what I thought ought to be done under
the