aterford."

"Why, you will not fight!"

"I must have your father's money, and the property he stole from me."

"I hope you won't quarrel," she added, anxiously.

"Not if I can help it. Mr. Whippleton is a fugitive from justice, and I
don't mean to let him escape me."

"I am afraid of him. If he gets rid of you, he will go back and find
Mr. Waterford."

"Well, don't worry any more yet. That is not Mr. Whippleton in the
boat. I am sorry it is not he," I continued, satisfied, as the boat
approached, that it was not the fugitive.

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because, if this other person, whoever he is, come on board, and find
that Mr. Waterford is not here, and that I am here, he will try to
escape."

"Of course he knows that you are here."

"I am afraid he does; but I hope not. He had passed the point at the
mouth of the creek when the battle was finished on the other side of
the lake. I can't tell whether he saw the result or not."

"That's a black man in the boat," said Marian.

"Then he has engaged a cook."

I knew that Mr. Whippleton sometimes employed a colored man, who had
been a sailor and a cook on the lake, to help him work the yacht when I
could not go with him; but I had never seen him, and did not think it
probable that he knew me. I went into the cabin, and brought out one of
Mr. Waterford's rifles; but as I did not intend to kill anybody, I did
not take the precaution to load it.

"What are you going to do with that, Philip?" asked Marian, as I
returned to the standing-room, with the rifle in my hand.

"I may have occasion to use it; but it is not loaded."

"Don't shoot any one, Philip--pray don't."

"I shall not be likely to do so while the rifle is not loaded."

"But you may do something you don't intend to do."

"I certainly don't intend to fire a rifle that isn't loaded; and I
shall not shoot any one."

I had not yet decided what to do, though a desperate scheme was
flitting through my mind. If Mr. Whippleton slept in the cabin of the
Florina that night, it would be possible to board the yacht by stealth
in the darkness, fall upon him, and bind him hand and foot. The plan
looked practicable to me, and though I had not yet arranged the details
of it in my mind, or considered its difficulties, I was disposed to
undertake it. I did not care, therefore, to have the negro return to
the Florina with the intelligence that I was in possession of the
Marian. I intended, therefore, to make him