e, with a laugh, "and is it you that
welcome me back again, like the prodigal that I am?"

"Sir," said I, very sternly, "you will be pleased to answer my question,
for I tell you plain that I am in no humor for jesting upon this
occasion."

"And why should I not jest?" says he; "the whole business is a jest from
first to last. As all this coil has been made about a very simple piece
of business, I am forced to tell what I had not intended to tell, and
which I am surprised that a man of your feeling should urge another
into declaring. A man of parts, sir, may find favor with dusky beauties
as well as with white; nor can I see what more harm there may be in
visiting a sweetheart here than at Gravesend, which I doubt not you
yourself have done, and that more than once."

I confess that I was vastly struck aback at this reasonable answer, and
began for a moment to misdoubt that my suspicions of the captain were
correct. For a while I stood, not knowing what to say, when of a sudden
certain circumstances struck me that Captain Leach's words had not
explained.

"And why," said I, "at a time of such anxiety and uncertainty, did you
not ask permission to leave the ship?"

"I should think," says he, "a man of delicacy would have no need to ask
such a question as that."

"Then tell me this," I cried, "_why did you not direct your course
towards the land instead of towards the open sea?_"

"Why," says he, laughing, and answering with the utmost readiness, "I
thought of nothing at all but of getting away from the ship as fast as
possible, seeing that some hasty fool aboard was blazing away at me with
a pistol or musquetoon, and that if I had been picking my course at the
time I might have wound up the business with an ounce of lead in my
brains, instead of enjoying this pleasant conversation in such good
health."

All this time we had been standing within a foot or two of one another,
I looking him straight in the face, though I could see nothing of it in
the darkness. For a moment or two I could make no answer, his words
being so mightily plausible; and yet I did not believe a single one of
them, for they ran so smoothly and glibly that I could not but feel
convinced that he had them already sorted and arranged for just such an
occasion as the present.

"Sir," said I, in a low voice, for I was afraid lest my indignation
should get the better of me, "I tell you plain that, though your words
are so smooth, I do not belie