compensate me for losing her,
than for losing my own life."

The tears were in his pale eyes as he said these words; and Mr. Condell
eyed him with sympathy. But he soon recovered himself, and was the man of
business again. "Oh, the specie on board the _Proserpine?_ Well, I was in
Australia, you know, and bought that specie myself of the merchants whose
names are attached to the receipts. I deposited the cases with White &
Co., at Sydney. Penfold will show you the receipt. I instructed Joseph
Wylie, mate of the _Proserpine,_ and a trustworthy person, to see them
stowed away in the _Proserpine,_ by White & Co. Hudson is a good seaman;
and the _Proserpine_ a new ship, built by Mare. We have nothing to fear
but the ordinary perils of the sea."

"So one would think," said Mr. Condell, and took his leave; but, at the
door he hesitated, and then, looking down a little sheepishly, said, "Mr.
Wardlaw, may I offer you a piece of advice?"

"Certainly."

Then, double the insurance on the _Shannon,_ if you can.

With these words he slipped out, evidently to avoid questions he did not
intend to answer.

Wardlaw stared after him, stupidly at first, and then stood up and put
his hand to his head in a sort of amazement. Then he sat down again, ashy
pale, and with the dew on his forehead, and muttered faintly,
"Double--the insurance--of the--_Shannon!"_

Men who walk in crooked paths are very subject to such surprises; doomed,
like Ahab, to be pierced, through the joints of their armor, by random
shafts; by words uttered in one sense, but conscience interprets them in
another.

It took a good many underwriters to insure the _Proserpine's_ freight;
but the business was done at last.

Then Wardlaw, who had feigned insouciance so admirably in that part of
his interview with Condell, went, without losing an hour, and raised a
large sum of money on the insured freight, to meet the bills that were
coming due for the gold (for he had paid for most of it in paper at short
dates), and also other bills that were approaching maturity. This done,
he breathed again, safe for a month or two from everything short of a
general panic, and full of hope from his coming master-stroke. But two
months soon pass when a man has a flock of kites in the air. Pass? They
fly. So now he looked out anxiously for his Australian ships; and went to
Lloyds' every day to hear if either had been seen or heard of by
steamers, or by faster vessels than themselv