kylight, with the lantern in his hand, when
Paul Casimer made his appearance on deck, wearing a long sea-coat that
reached to his heels, and with a slouch hat drawn low over his eyes and
violently pulled down at the back, to keep out the weather.

"A rough night, Mr. Moore," he said, rather crabbedly. "What are our
soundings?"

"Nine fathoms," answered the mate, with no very evident desire to be
communicative.

"And little enough it is, too!" grumbled Mr. Casimer. "We will be on the
reefs the first you know, if you keep her going at this rate--twelve or
fourteen knots an hour, and the wind tight after us."

Mr. Moore made no reply, and when he had made two or three turns of the
deck, with every appearance of having very little confidence in either
his legs or his stomach, Mr. Casimer sullenly retired, and Phil and the
mate were again alone.

"Our friend, Don Casimer, seems to have a rather ugly twist in his
temper to-night," laughed the mate, as soon as the object of his remarks
had disappeared. "If a shark were to dine off him, it would not much
matter, for he's the sort of a fellow that hates himself and everybody
else. He's in the Cuba trade, and thinks-- Eh, by George, boy, look out,
or you'll be overboard! That was a thumper, and no mistake!"

The tremendous wave that struck the ship, and jerked the word of caution
from the mate's lips, threw Phil violently against the nettings,
deluging the deck and sending a shower of blinding salt spray as high as
the smoke-stack.

Phil righted with the ship--that is, he scrambled to his feet and shook
the brine from his eyes, as soon as the gallant little steamer got her
propeller again in the water, and had settled herself for another
shock.

"I should say it was a thumper!" gasped Phil. "It seemed to walk on
board and grab at everything within its reach. It's got my hat, and
would have got me, if I had not clung for dear life to the nettings."

"It's a way these heavy cross-seas have of introducing themselves,
lashed by such a wind as is blowing now," said Mr. Moore. "I think you
must have been cut out for a sailor, you take so kindly to the rough
side of a sailor's life."

"Oh, I don't know!" replied Phil, diffidently. "I like the sea. I
haven't seen much of it, but what I have seen has been pretty rough--an
experience that I'd not like to live over again."

He thought of Lelia, and the time they were adrift together in the
little pleasure-boat; of their awful