r to visit me in my cabin, Captain Flanger, it is reasonable
to suppose you have some object in view, for I do not regard it as a
merely friendly call."

Though the young officer was prudent and discreet, he did not lose his
self-possession, and he smiled as though he had been simply the host in
the dining-room of the mansion at Bonnydale. There was a certain humor
about the intruder which would have pleased him under other
circumstances.

"Quite right, captain!" exclaimed the visitor. "I have an object in
view, and both my inclination and my duty are urging me to carry it
out. How your boat happened to capture the Magnolia is beyond my
comprehension up to the present moment, though I think the principal
reason was the lack of a sufficiently osseous vertebra on the part of
your worthy uncle, Colonel Passford. Then the officer in charge of the
cutter did not do what I expected him to do. Instead of falling back
when he and one of his crew were wounded, as he ought to have done, and
using the heavy revolvers with which his men were armed, he did not
delay a moment, but smashed into the sloop, and jerked his men on board
of her, cutlass in one hand and revolver in the other; and that brought
me to the end of my rope. I could not do anything more."

"I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with my third lieutenant's mode
of operations," replied Christy, laughing, though his mirth was of the
graveyard order. "But Mr. Pennant is a new officer, and that was the
first active duty he had been called upon to perform. Very likely he
will suit you better next time."

Christy yawned, or pretended to do so, and in the act he rose from the
table. Captain Flanger was silent as he did so, and watched the captain
with the eye of a lynx, as the latter placed himself behind the chair he
had occupied. He was in position to make a movement of some kind, and
the intruder deliberately drew from his right-hand coat pocket a heavy
revolver. Holding this in his hand, he drew another from the left-hand
pocket, and threw it on the table.

"I don't wish to be rude with a gentleman as polite as yourself, Captain
Passford; but you interrupted my remarks by rising from your chair,"
said Captain Flanger, with the revolver still poised in his hand, while
he dropped the other with the handcuff upon it at his side.

"Excuse me for interrupting you, Captain Flanger; but I have eaten a
hearty supper, encouraged by your friendly presence, and I was sleepy,