the giant furnaces cast upon its rocky roof. Now,
as then, leather-clad figures moved before its molten fires. There were
the mighty boilers, the pumping engine, the throbbing cylinders, the
shining cranks; but the man who staggered towards me in the white
light, the man who uttered a glad cry of recognition, the man who fell
at last at my feet, imploring me for the love of mercy to bring him
food and drink, that man was no enemy.

He was Clair-de-Lune, the old Frenchman, and I had but to look at him
twice to see that he was the neighbour of death.

"Clair-de-Lune, old comrade!" I cried, "you! We owe our lives to
_you_, then! By thunder, you shame us all!"

He was pale as death; the sweat ran in streams down upon his naked
breast; his words came like a torrent when he tried to tell me all.

"Three days in prison, and no man come to me," he said, pathetically;
"then I hear your voice. I say it is Captain Begg. I am glad, monsieur,
because it is a friend. I break the door of my prison and would come up
to you; but no, there is no one in the house; all gone. I say that my
friends die if I do not serve them. There are lads with me; but they
are honest. Ah, Captain Begg, food and drink, for the love of Christ!"

He fainted in thy arms, and I carried him from the place. Again, in all
providence, I and those dear to me had been saved by the fidelity of
one of the oddest of God's creatures.

_The same day. At eight o'clock._

I have begun to believe that the Italian is right, and that Czerny left
no more than eight men in the lower house. No attack has been made upon
the Americans we put in charge of the engine, nor is there any news of
those mutineers who fled from us this morning, save that which comes
from two of them, very pitiful creatures, broken-down and starving, who
have surrendered their arms and begged for food. The others, they say,
will come in presently, when the big man, whom they call Kess Denton,
will let them. They protest that their comrades are but four, and two
of them wounded grievously. I no longer feel any anxiety about that
which is below, and I have told Miss Ruth as much. She has now been two
hours with Captain Nepeen. Her way of life draws her sympathetically
towards that brave and gentle man. It must be so. The world has put a
great gulf between the simple seaman and those whom fortune shelters at
her heart. A plain sailor has his duty to do; the world would laugh at
him if he forgot it becau