der, and
apparently peering anxiously round him into the obscurity.

"Well," said I, "I think he perhaps feels a little uneasy at our being
becalmed just here, and in such an intensely dark night, too. The
Malays have the name of being born pirates, you know, and should they
happen to take it into their heads to attack us just now, it would be
rather awkward, since we could do absolutely nothing to avoid them while
this calm lasts."

"Do _you_ think there is any danger of such an occurrence, captain?" he
asked, with manifest anxiety.

"Not very much," I replied. "There were no suspicious craft visible at
nightfall. Still, an attack is by no means an impossibility, especially
on such a dark night. The circumstances are precisely those which I
imagine would be deemed highly favourable by people piratically
inclined."

"Then why, in Heaven's name, my good sir, do you not make preparation
for such an eventuality?" exclaimed my companion, excitedly.

"For the simple reason," I replied, "that all the preparation possible
could be made in five minutes; and, as a matter of fact, I was only
waiting until you had all retired, when I intended at once making them.
Two slashes of a sharp knife would suffice to release those
boarding-pikes from the boom; and you can easily calculate for yourself
the length of time it would take to serve out a brace of revolvers and a
cutlass to each of our small crew."

"Um!" ejaculated the baronet. "And have you no rifles on board?"

"I have one," said I; "but of what use would it be on such a dark night
as this?"

"True; too true," muttered Sir Edgar. "Nevertheless, I think I will go
down and put my Winchester together, upon the off chance of work being
found for it. Confound this calm, say I. If it were not for the fact
of my wife and bairns being on board there is nothing I should enjoy
more than a brush with the rascals--for my feeling is that pirates
deserve no mercy--but, as it is--" An expressive shrug eloquently
concluded the sentence; and the baronet at once rose and went below.

A minute or two later the piano became silent, and I heard the sound of
the instrument being closed, as Sir Edgar remarked, laughingly--

"Thank you, Emily. If you go on at this rate you will soon recover your
old form. I thought, just now, as I sat on deck listening to your
singing, that your voice had never sounded sweeter. But, as your chief
medical adviser, I really must forbid your using