eady, but when she spoke everything was
condensed in the one exclamation--

"Oh!"

For as she reached the hall where her coming and going had so startled
the midshipman in the darkness, she found that the door was wide open
and the window shut.

She looked about bewildered, but there was no sign of the room having
been occupied.

"Did I dream it all?" she said in an awe-stricken whisper. "No: the men
came to take away the brandy and silk, and I saw them here."

She pressed her hands to her temples, for the surprise had confused her,
and in addition her head ached and throbbed.

"Could I have dreamed it?" she asked herself again. "No, I remember the
men coming to fetch away the things and then I found him watching."

She stood gazing before her, with her puzzled feeling increasing, till a
thought struck her.

She saw the men come to fetch the kegs. If she really did see that, the
kegs would be gone.

The proof was easy. If the brandy and silk were gone, the door of the
vault would be open. If the things were not fetched away, it would be
locked up; and if she tapped on the door with her knuckles, there would
be a dull sound instead of a hollow, echoing noise.

She ran quickly down, and the door was locked.

She tapped with her knuckles, and the sound indicated that the place was
full, for all was dull and heavy and no reverberation in the place.

"I must have dreamed it all," she cried joyously. "I have thought so
much about it that I have fancied all this, and made myself ill. Why,
of course he could not have got in there to watch or the men would have
seen him come."

It is very easy to place faith in that which you wish to believe.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Lieutenant brough was out for a long walk. That is to say, he had his
glass tucked under his arm, and was trotting up and down his cleanly
holystoned deck, pausing from time to time to raise his glass to his
eye, and watch the top of the cliff, ending by gazing in the direction
of the cove.

The men said he had been putting them through their facings that
morning, and he had been finding more fault in two hours than in the
previous week, for he was getting fidgety. He had not enjoyed his
breakfast, and it was getting on toward the time for his mid-day meal.

Suddenly he stopped short by the master, who had also been using a
glass, and was evidently waiting to be spoken to.

"Seemed in good spirits last night, Mr Gurr, eh?"

"Mr Raysto