e skipper did sit down, and listened with a look of interest and
expectation as the child began--

"There was once a great, strong, brave man, who was very kind to
everybody, most of all to little children. One day he was walking near
a river, when a great, fearful, ugly beast, came out of the wood, and
seized the man with its terrible teeth. It was far stronger than the
dear, good man, and it threw him down, and held him down, till--till it
killed him."

She stopped, and tears filled her soft eyes at the scene she had
conjured up.

"Do you know," she asked in a deeper tone, "what sort of awful beast it
was?"

"No; what was it?"

"A Blue Boar," said the child, pressing the strong hand which she
detained.

Lockley's eyes fell for a moment before Eve's earnest gaze, and a flush
deepened the colour of his bronzed countenance. Then he sprang suddenly
up and kissed Eve's forehead.

"Thank you, my pretty one, for your story, but it an't just correct, for
the man is not quite killed _yet_ and, please God, he'll escape."

As he spoke the door of the hut received a severe blow, as if some heavy
body had fallen against it. When Isa opened it, a dirty bundle of rags
and humanity rolled upon the floor. It was Eve's mother!

Lifting her up in his strong arms, Lockley carried her into the closet
which opened off the outer room, and laid her tenderly on a mattress
which lay on the floor. Then, without a word, he left the hut and went
home.

It is scarcely necessary to add that he took the longer road on that
occasion, and gave a very wide berth indeed to the Blue Boar.

CHAPTER FOUR.

HARDSHIPS ON THE SEA.

Fly with us now, good reader, once more out among the breeze-ruffled
billows of the North Sea.

It was blowing a fine, fresh, frosty fishing breeze from the nor'-west
on a certain afternoon in December. The Admiral--Manx Bradley--was
guiding his fleet over that part of the German Ocean which is described
on the deep-sea fisherman's chart as the Swarte, or Black Bank. The
trawls were down, and the men were taking it easy--at least, as easy as
was compatible with slush-covered decks, a bitter blast, and a rolling
sea. If we had the power of extending and intensifying your vision,
reader, so as to enable you to take the whole fleet in at one stupendous
glance, and penetrate planks as if they were plate glass, we might,
perhaps, convince you that in this multitude of deep-sea homes there was
carried on