zzen sails blanketed by the foresails saved the main
and mizzenmasts from being sprung, if not carried overboard. Never, I
fancy, did the crew of a man-of-war have to suffer such a maddening
checkmate. They dared not even come about to give the saucy sloop a
broadside, but could only bark away with the ineffective bow-chasers.
The sloop packed on what was a tremendous spread of canvas for so small
a craft, and fled away aslant the wind at a speed that the frigate could
not have hoped to equal on the same course, even had the rigging been in
perfect trim.

By the time the British had stoppered the broken shrouds, reeved
preventer braces, and strengthened the splintered mizzenmast, the
Spanish ship had drifted down within hailing distance. She now sat very
low astern, and such of her people as had not been slain or helplessly
wounded had crowded up into her high-flung bows and were shrieking to us
for rescue. There was not one of their boats which had escaped the
fierce fire of the sloop's carronades. Seeing this, and that pursuit of
the sloop was now hopeless, the British captain ordered out all the
frigate's boats to take off the imperilled Spaniards.

This was a simple matter, as there was little sea running and the wind
no more than a fair breeze. Soon the first boatload of Spaniards was
brought over from the sinking ship and rowed along our starboard side
toward the stern. As the boat passed, I looked down from the lofty deck
in the idle curiosity of my empty head. Seated in the stern-sheets I saw
a portly man in robes, and beside him a slender woman in the white veil
of a novice. The woman looked up--It was Alisanda!

A cry burst from my lips, and I staggered back with a hand to my
forehead. In a twinkling everything had come back to me--full
consciousness and memory of myself, my life, my love! But in the same
instant all memory of my days aboard the _Belligerent_ became a blank.

I stared about me in amazement. Then I remembered that my lady was being
rowed alongside this strange ship. I glanced over, and saw that the
boat had made fast alongside the ship's quarter,--that preparations were
under way to lift Alisanda to the deck.

Heedless of all else in the strange unknown scene about me, I ran aft,
half mad with the mystery and joy of such a meeting. But suddenly a
marine sprang before me with lowered bayonet.

"Halt!" he ordered.

I stopped short, with the point against my breast.

"Let me past--let me