“Ay, ay,” was the answer; “seeing us in motion, has put him in mind of his next voyage.  They keep watch aboard the fellow, like the sun in Greenland six months on deck, and six months below!”

The witticism produced, as usual, a laugh among the seamen, who continued their remarks in a similar vein, but in tones more suited to the deference due to their superiors.

The eyes, however, of Wilder had fastened themselves on the other ship.  The man so long seated on the end of the main-yard had disappeared, and another sailor was deliberately walking along the opposite quarter of the same spar, steadying himself by the boom, and holding in one hand the end of a rope, which he was apparently about to reeve in the place where it properly belonged.  The first glance told Wilder that the latter was Fid, who was so far recovered from his debauch as to tread the giddy height with as much, if not greater, steadiness than he would have rolled along the ground, had his duty called him to terra firma.  The countenance of the young man, which, an instant before, had been flushed with excitement, and which was beaming with the pleasure of an opening confidence, changed directly to a look of gloom and reserve.  Mrs Wyllys who had lost no shade of the varying expression of his face, resumed the discourse, with some earnestness, where he had seen fit so abruptly to break it off.

“You would relieve us,” she said, “at the expense of”——­

“Life, Madam; but not of honour.”

“Gertrude, we can now retire to our cabin,” observed Mrs Wyllys, with an air of cold displeasure, in which disappointment was a good deal mingled with resentment at the trifling of which she believed herself the subject.  The eye of Gertrude was no less averted and distant than that of her governess, while the tint that gave lustre to its beam was brighter, if not quite so resentful.  As the two moved past the silent Wilder, each dropped a distant salute, and then our adventurer found himself the sole occupant of the quarter-deck.  While his crew were busied in coiling ropes, and clearing the decks, their young Commander leaned his head on the taffrail, (that part of the vessel which the good relict of the Rear-Admiral had so strangely confounded with a very different object in the other end of the ship), remaining for many minutes in an attitude of deep abstraction.  From this reverie he was at length aroused, by a sound like that produced by the lifting and falling of a light oar into the water.  Believing himself about to be annoyed by visiters from the land, he raised his head, and cast a dissatisfied glance over the vessel’s side, to see who was approaching.

A light skiff, such as is commonly used by fishermen in the bays and shallow waters of America, was lying within ten feet of the ship, and in a position where it was necessary to take some little pains in order to observe it.  It was occupied by a single man, whose back was towards the vessel, and who was apparently abroad on the ordinary business of the owner of such a boat.