--"Britannia, rule the waves!"
Dolly felt like a Briton as the words rolled through her, and the melody
lifted her proud heart.

"You have deluded yourself," she said, standing proudly before the
baffled spy; "you have ransacked my father's private desk, which I
allowed you to do, because my father has no secrets. He leaves it open
half the time, because he is a man of honour. He is not a man of plots,
and wiles, and trickery upon women. And you have deluded yourself, in
dreaming that a daughter of his would betray her Country."

"By the God that made me, I will have your life!" cried Carne in
French, as he dashed his hand under his coat to draw his dagger; but the
pressure of the desk had displaced that, so that he could not find it.
She thought that her time was come, and shrieked--for she was not at all
heroic, and loved life very dearly--but she could not take her eyes from
his, nor turn to fly from the spell of them; all she could do was to
step back; and she did so into her father's arms.

"Ho!" cried the Admiral, who had entered with the smile of good cheer
and good company glowing on his fine old countenance; "my Dolly and a
stranger at my private desk! Mr. Carne! I have had a glass or two of
wine, but my eyes must be playing me extraordinary tricks. A gentleman
searching my desk, and apparently threatening my dear daughter! Have the
kindness to explain, before you attempt to leave us."

If the curtain had not been drawn across the window, Carne would have
made his escape, and left the situation to explain itself. But the stuff
was thick, and it got between his legs; and before he could slip
away, the stout old Admiral had him by the collar with a sturdy grasp,
attesting the substance of the passing generation. And a twinkle of
good-humour was in the old eyes still--such a wonder was his Dolly that
he might be doing wrong in laying hands of force upon a visitor of hers.
Things as strange as this had been within his knowledge, and proved to
be of little harm--with forbearance. But his eyes grew stern, as Carne
tried to dash his hand off.

"If you value your life, you will let me go," said the young man to the
old one.

"I will not let you go, sir, till you clear up this. A gentleman must
see that he is bound to do so. If I prove to be wrong, I will apologise.
What! Are you going to fire at me? You would never be such a coward!"

He dropped upon the floor, with a bullet in his brain, and his course of
duty