, the woman entered, and placed upon the table a small pitcher
containing liquor. Taking from a shelf two tumblers, she turned her back
towards Frank, and drew from her bosom a small box, from which she
rapidly transferred a few grains of fine white powder into one of the
tumblers; then going to a cupboard in one corner, she put a teaspoonful
of loaf sugar into each of the tumblers, and placing them upon the
table, requested our hero to 'help himself.'

Frank poured some liquor into the tumbler nearest him, and looking
askance at the woman as he did so, he saw that her features wore a smile
of satisfaction; she then supplied her own glass, and was about to raise
it to her lips, when our hero said, in a gruff, sleepy tone--

'I say, old woman, you haven't half sweetened this grog of mine. Don't
be so d--d stingy of your sugar, for I've money enough to pay for it.'

The woman turned and went to the closet to get another spoonful of the
article in question; when Frank, with the rapidity of lightning,
_changed the tumblers_, placing the deadly dose designed for him, in the
same spot where the woman's tumbler had stood. This movement was
accomplished with so much dexterity, that when she advanced to the table
with the sugar, she failed to notice the alteration.

'Well, old gal--here's to the wind that blows, the ship that goes, and
the lass that loves a sailor!' And delivering himself of this hackneyed
nautical toast, the pretended seaman drank off the contents of his
glass, an example which was followed by the female miscreant, who
responded to Frank's toast by uttering aloud the significant wish--

'May your sleep to-night be sound!'

'Ay, ay, I hope so, and yours, too,' grumbled our hero, placing an
enormous quid of tobacco in his cheek, in order to remove the unpleasant
taste of the vile liquor which he had just drank.

There was a pause of a few minutes; when suddenly the woman grasped
Frank convulsively by the arm, and gazed into his countenance with
wildly gleaming eyes.

'Tell me,' she gasped, like one in the agonies of strangulation--'tell
me the truth, for God's sake--_did you change those tumblers_?'

'I did,' was the answer.

'Then I am lost!' she almost shrieked--'lost, lost! The liquor which I
drank contained a powder which will within half an hour sink me into a
condition of insensibility, from which I shall only awake a raging
maniac! I am rightly served--for I designed that to be _your_ fate!'

'