faintly impinged upon the mist at one side impressed him so strongly that he stopped; the apparition stopped too.  Continuing a few hundred paces further, he stopped again; but this time the ghostly figure passed on, and convinced him that it was no shadow, but some one actually following him.  With an angry challenge he advanced towards it.  It quickly retreated inland, and was lost.  Irritated and suspicious he turned back towards the water, and was amazed to see before him, not twenty yards away, the object of his quest—­a boat, with two men in it, kept in position by the occasional lazy dip of an oar.  In the pursuit of his mysterious shadow he had evidently overlooked it.  As his own figure emerged from the fog, the boat pulled towards him.  The priest’s password was upon his lips, when he perceived that the two men were common foreign sailors; the messenger of the Church was evidently not there.  Could it have been he who had haunted him?  He paused irresolutely.  “Is there none other coming?” he asked.  The two men looked at each other.  One said, “Quien sabe!” and shrugged his shoulders.  Hurlstone without further hesitation leaped aboard.

The same dull wall of vapor—­at times thickening to an almost impenetrable barrier, and again half suffocating him in its soft embrace—­which he had breasted on the night he swam ashore, carried back his thoughts to that time, now so remote and unreal.  And when, after a few moments’ silent rowing, the boat approached a black hulk that seemed to have started forward out of the gloom to meet them, his vague recollection began to take a more definite form.  As he climbed up the companion-ladder and boarded the vessel, an inexplicable memory came over him.  A petty officer on the gangway advanced silently and ushered him, half dazed and bewildered, into the cabin.  He glanced hurriedly around:  the door of a state-room opened, and disclosed the indomitable and affable Senor Perkins!  A slight expression of surprise, however, crossed the features of the Liberator of Quinquinambo as he advanced with outstretched hand.

“This is really a surprise, my dear fellow!  I had no idea that you were in this affair.  But I am delighted to welcome you once more to the Excelsior!”

CHAPTER VII.

The return of the Excelsior.

Amazed and disconcerted, Hurlstone, nevertheless, retained his presence of mind.

“There must be some mistake,” he said coolly; “I am certainly not the person you seem to be expecting.”

“Were you not sent here by Winslow?” demanded Perkins.

“No.  The person you are looking for is probably one I saw on the shore.  He no doubt became alarmed at my approach, and has allowed me quite unwittingly to take his place in the boat.”

Perkins examined Hurlstone keenly for a moment, stepped to the door, gave a brief order, and returned.