s, connected with the cargo of the ship.

Two sinister, ill-looking men they were, who spoke with loud,
authoritative voices, and, for the time being, appeared masters of the
vessel and all that it contained, examining with provoking exactness,
cupboards, bedding, boxes, and binns of biscuit, till there seemed no
end to their prying and vexatious system of cross-questioning.

The Captain notified his consciousness of the presence of the new-comers
with a short nod of recognition; but he was too much occupied to welcome
them with words. He seemed in a desperate ill-humour with his official
visitors, and replied to all their queries with a significant elevation
of his broad shoulders, and a brief "No" or "Yes," which greatly
resembled a growl.

During his absence on deck, whither he accompanied the senior officer,
his companion, who was seated on the bench opposite to that occupied by
Mrs. Lyndsay and her maid, with his back to an open binn, full of
biscuits and other sea-stores, took the opportunity afforded by the
Captain's departure, to fill the huge pockets in his large jacket with
the said stores, until his tall, lank person, was swelled out into very
portly dimensions. He then made a sudden dash at the brandy-bottle
(which the Captain had left on the table), and, casting a thievish
glance at Mrs. Lyndsay, who was highly amused by watching his movements,
he refilled his glass, and tossed it off with the air of a child who is
afraid of being detected, while on a foraging expedition into Mamma's
cupboard. This matter settled, he wiped his mouth with the cuff of his
jacket, and assumed a look of vulgar consequence and superiority, which
must have forced a smile to Flora's lips had she been at all in a humour
for mirth.

"Strange!" she thought, as she sat muffled up in her cloak, a silent
spectatress of his manoeuvres, "that such a mean, dishonest wretch as
this, should be empowered to act the petty tyrant, and pass judgment on
the integrity of others, who is so destitute of the principles of common
honesty himself!"

She certainly forgot, during her mental colloquy, the wisdom concealed
beneath the homely adage, "Set a thief to catch a thief!" and the
profound knowledge of the world hidden in that brief, pithy sentence.

The provoking business of inspection (for so it seemed to the
Captain--to judge by his flushed cheek and frowning brow,) was at length
over; the officers withdrew, and were succeeded by the doctor