s early life, and I suppose I carried that ivory
gimcrack in my breast for nearly three months, pulling it out to refresh
my memory every half-hour. By Gad, if the young gentleman was
anything like his picture, I could have sworn to him if I'd met him in
Timbuctoo."

"Do you think you'd know him again?" asked Rufus Dawes in a low voice,
turning away his head.

There may have been something in the attitude in which the speaker had
put himself that awakened memory, or perhaps the subdued eagerness of
the tone, contrasting so strangely with the comparative inconsequence of
the theme, that caused John Rex's brain to perform one of those feats
of automatic synthesis at which we afterwards wonder. The profligate
son--the likeness to the portrait--the mystery of Dawes's life! These
were the links of a galvanic chain. He closed the circuit, and a vivid
flash revealed to him--THE MAN.

Warder Troke, coming up, put his hand on Rex's shoulder. "Dawes," he
said, "you're wanted at the yard"; and then, seeing his mistake, added
with a grin, "Curse you two; you're so much alike one can't tell t'other
from which."

Rufus Dawes walked off moodily; but John Rex's evil face turned pale,
and a strange hope made his heart leap. "Gad, Troke's right; we are
alike. I'll not press him to escape any more."

CHAPTER XXIII. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.

The Pretty Mary--as ugly and evil-smelling a tub as ever pitched under
a southerly burster--had been lying on and off Cape Surville for nearly
three weeks. Captain Blunt was getting wearied. He made strenuous
efforts to find the oyster-beds of which he was ostensibly in search,
but no success attended his efforts. In vain did he take boat and pull
into every cove and nook between the Hippolyte Reef and Schouten's
Island. In vain did he run the Pretty Mary as near to the rugged cliffs
as he dared to take her, and make perpetual expeditions to the shore. In
vain did he--in his eagerness for the interests of Mrs. Purfoy--clamber
up the rocks, and spend hours in solitary soundings in Blackman's Bay.
He never found an oyster. "If I don't find something in three or four
days more," said he to his mate, "I shall go back again. It's too
dangerous cruising here."

* * * * *

On the same evening that Captain Blunt made this resolution, the
watchman at Signal Hill saw the arms of the semaphore at the settlement
make three motions, thus:

The sem