took him by the throat.

"One, if you prefer it," Colonel Sullivan answered suavely. "You can
take your chance with the English authorities. For myself, I lean to
the course I have suggested."

"If money were paid down--now? Now, sir?"

"It would not avail."

"Much money?"

"No."

The Bishop glared at him for a few seconds. Then his face relaxed, his
eyes grew mild, his chin sank on his breast. His fingers drummed on the
table. "His will be done!" he said--"His will be done! I was not
worthy."

His surrender seemed to sting Cammock. Perhaps in the course of their
joint adventures he had come to know and to respect his companion, and
felt more for him than for himself.

"If I had you on my quarter-deck for only half an hour," he growled, "I
would learn who was the better man! Ah, my man, I would!"

"The doubt flatters me," Colonel John answered, viewing them both with
great respect; for he saw that, bad or good, they were men. Then, "That
being settled," he continued, "I shall ask you, gentlemen, to go on
deck for a few moments, that I may say a word to my kinsman."

"He is not to go with us?"

"That remains to be seen," Colonel John replied, a note of sternness in
his voice. Still they hesitated, and he stood; but at last, in
obedience to his courteous gesture, they bowed, turned--with a deep
sigh on the Bishop's part--and clambered up the companion. The seamen
had already vanished at a word from Augustin, who himself proceeded to
follow his prisoners on deck.

"Sit down!" Colonel Sullivan said, the same sternness in his voice. And
he sat down on his side of the table, while James McMurrough, with a
sullen look but a beating heart, took his seat on the other. The fear
of immediate death had left the young man; he tried to put on an air of
bravado, but with so little success that if his sister had seen him
thus she had been blind indeed if she had not discerned, between these
two men seated opposite to one another, the difference that exists
between the great and the small, the strong and the infirm of purpose.

It was significant of that difference that the one was silent at will,
while the other spoke because he had not the force to be silent.

"What are you wanting with me?" the young man asked.

"Is it not you," Colonel John answered, with a piercing look, "will be
wanting to know where O'Sullivan Og is--O'Sullivan Og, whom you sent to
do your bidding this morning?"

The young man turned a shade