was listening.

"I was at that time a sailor. I had been fool enough to run away from
college, thinking it a fine romantic thing to ship before the mast for
a voyage round the world. I was a little disappointed, perhaps, but I
made the best of it, and in two years I was second mate of a whaler
lying in a little harbor of one of the uncivilized islands of the
Pacific. While we were at anchor there a French trading vessel put in,
apparently for water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and
Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by desertion,
and that the captain and mate had been carried off by fever. There was
something so queer in their story that our skipper took the law in his
own hands, and put me on board of her with a salvage crew. But that
night the French crew mutinied, cut the cables, and would have got to
sea if we had not been armed and prepared, and managed to drive them
below. When we had got them under hatches for a few hours they
parleyed, and offered to go quietly ashore. As we were short of hands
and unable to take them with us, and as we had no evidence against
them, we let them go, took the ship to Callao, turned her over to the
authorities, lodged a claim for salvage, and continued our voyage. When
we returned we found the truth of the story was known. She had been a
French trader from Marseilles, owned by her captain; her crew had
mutinied in the Pacific, killed their officers and the only
passenger--the owner of the cargo. They had made away with the cargo
and a treasure of nearly half a million of Spanish gold for trading
purposes which belonged to the passenger. In course of time the ship
was sold for salvage and put into the South American trade until the
breaking out of the Californian gold excitement, when she was sent with
a cargo to San Francisco. That ship was the Pontiac which your father
bought."

A slight shudder ran through the girl's frame. "I wish--I wish you
hadn't told me," she said. "I shall never close my eyes again
comfortably on board of her, I know."

"I would say that you had purified her of ALL stains of her past--but
there may be one that remains. And THAT in most people's eyes would be
no detraction. You look puzzled, Miss Nott--but I am coming to the
explanation and the end of my story. A ship of war was sent to the
island to punish the mutineers and pirates, for such they were, but
they could not be found. A private expediti