Manly clapped his hand upon our hero's shoulder and
fell to shaking him so that he could hardly stand, crying out to him
the while to be silent. Says he: "How do you dare, an officer of this
ship, to quarrel with a passenger of mine! Go straight to your cabin,
and stay there till I give you leave to come out again."

At this Master Barnaby came somewhat back to himself. "But he
threatened to strike me with his cane," he says, "and that I won't
stand from any man!"

"No matter for that," says Captain Manly, very sternly. "Go to your
cabin, as I bid you, and stay there till I tell you to come out again,
and when we get to New York I'll take pains to inform your step-father
of how you have behaved. I'll have no such rioting as this aboard my
ship."

By this time, as you may suppose, the young lady was gone. As for Sir
John Malyoe, he stood in the light of a lantern, his face that had been
so red now gone as white as ashes, and if a look could kill, to be sure
he would have destroyed Barnaby True where he stood.

It was thus that the events of that memorable day came to a conclusion.
How little did any of the actors of the scene suspect that a portentous
Fate was overhanging them, and was so soon to transform all their
present circumstances into others that were to be perfectly different!

And how little did our hero suspect what was in store for him upon the
morrow, as with hanging head he went to his cabin, and shutting the
door upon himself, and flinging himself down upon his berth, there
yielded himself over to the profoundest depths of humiliation and
despair.

V

From his melancholy meditations Barnaby, by-and-by and in spite of
himself, began dropping off into a loose slumber, disturbed by
extravagant dreams of all sorts, in which Sir John Malyoe played some
important and malignant part.

From one of these dreams he was aroused to meet a new and startling
fate, by hearing the sudden and violent explosion of a pistol-shot ring
out as though in his ears. This was followed immediately by the sound
of several other shots exchanged in rapid succession as coming from the
deck above. At the same instant a blow of such excessive violence shook
the _Belle Helen_ that the vessel heeled over before it, and Barnaby
was at once aware that another craft--whether by accident or with
intention he did not know--must have run afoul of them.

Upon this point, and as to whether or not the collision was designed,
he was, howe