d around,
and I verily believe the business would have gone against me, after all,
only for Captain England, who must have been near for all this time, and
who came to the aid of the cripple. Both together, they contrived so to
argue and talk and threaten the others that the end of the matter was
they led me off to the captain's cabin, the one on one side of me and
the other on the other, whilst the crowd followed behind, though they
came no further than the door, which was clapped to in their faces.

"You've had a narrow miss of it," says England, so soon as we were come
fairly within and had sat down, "and you've nobody to thank for it but
yourself, for if you'd minded what I told you you'd have staid where you
were and let your bad luck sail her own craft without putting your hand
to the helm. Even yet I don't know if we'll be able to get you off, for
Tom Burke is hot for your blood, and will get it if he's able."

"That he will," says Ward; "for he's not the man to give up what he's
laid his hand to."

"Have you had anything to eat?" said England, presently.

"Not since five o'clock this morning," said I.

"Why," said he, "you'll have to be fed, whether they hang you or no."
Whereupon he fetched out from a locker a great lot of biscuit and a
decanter of the very port-wine with which I had entertained Mr. Longways
when he came aboard the _Cassandra_ with The Rose of Paradise; nor have
I ever tasted food that was more refreshing than that which I then ate,
for I was wellnigh exhausted with hunger.

No one spoke for a while, and England walked up and down the cabin with
his hands clasped behind his back. During all this time I had been
looking around me, and of a sudden my heart seemed to leap into my
throat, for in the corner of the cabin, lying amongst a lot of litter,
where it seemed to have been flung as of no account, I saw the iron
despatch-box.

My danger had been so great and my mind in such a maze for all this time
that there had been no room in my brain for other matters, the very
objects of my adventure having been forgotten for a while; but with the
sight of this everything came back to me with a rush, and I wondered for
the first time that I had not yet seen my betrayer.

"Where is Captain Leach?" said I to England.

He stopped short in his walk, and regarded me with a very strange
expression, which at the time I could in no wise understand.

"Why," says he, presently, "he was shot--shot by acci