find loose change enough on board of
the Josephine to keep us happy till we get to Paris, by the way of
Marseilles, and then we shall be rotten with stamps."

"But don't you expect to be caught some time or other?" inquired Wilton,
whose experience on a former occasion seemed to point in this
direction.

"No matter if we are. We must be ready for that; but we will be jolly
while we have things our own way."

"It's no use to talk about it yet," added Wilton, with a yawn, for the
wild scheme seemed so far off to him that he could not enter into the
spirit of it yet.

"It won't be more than a week or ten days before we shall be ready to
make a strike. You know we must all cut up so as to be left on board."

"Yes, and some one will be left on board with us, just as it happened at
Cowes."

"It won't be Fluxion, anyhow; for he has been transferred to the
Josephine, and we can come it over any other of the professors. However,
we must feel our way, and the first thing we have to do is to get left
on board."

"Humph! That's easy enough," said Wilton, who had never found any
difficulty in being left behind, or in being condemned to the brig.

"We must make a sure thing of it next time; but it won't do to run away
with a boat again. Hush up! There comes that old stick-in-the-mud from
the Josephine," added Perth, lowering his voice to a whisper.

The gentleman thus discourteously alluded to was Mr. Hamblin,who had
climbed upon the topgallant forecastle for the purpose of obtaining a
view of the region through which the vessel was passing. As the two boys
were far out on the bowsprit, over the water, he did not venture to
approach any nearer to them; yet the excessive prudence which the
Knights practised required them to keep silence whenever there was a
possibility that a word might be overheard by the uninitiated.

"I wish he would come up here," whispered Wilton, from the corner of his
mouth.

"Why?"

"I would contrive some way to spill him into the drink," chuckled the
ever-willing conspirator.

Mr. Hamblin was then cool and self-possessed, and he did not venture out
upon the treacherous spar, and the entangling rigging, so that the
wretch on the cap had no opportunity to give him a second bath in the
dirty Scheldt. The learned gentleman was looking for the site of the
Duke of Parma's Bridge, but he couldn't find it, and presently retired.
He was not much interested in the Spanish operations in Flanders, thoug