h of frame would
quickly terminate a single combat.

As the youth gained the more open land near the beach, the possibility
of making a successful cast of the spear became more and more doubtful.
Finally the savage shrunk into the bushes, and abandoned the pursuit.

"Not here yet, Master Gascoyne," muttered Henry, as he sat down on a
rock to rest; for, although the six miles of country he had crossed was
a trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged
mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red
Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better
in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should thus
be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this bay,
all for the benefit of a man who seems to me no better than he should
be, and whom I don't like, and yet whom I _do_ like in some
unaccountable fashion that I don't understand."

Whatever the youth's thoughts were after giving vent to the foregoing
soliloquy, he kept them to himself. They did not at first appear to be
of an agreeable nature; for he frowned once or twice, and struck his
thigh with his clenched hand; but gradually a pleasant expression lit
up his manly face, as he gazed out upon the sleeping sea and watched
the gorgeous clouds that soon began to rise and cluster round the sun.

After an hour or so spent in wandering on the beach picking up shells,
and gazing wistfully out to sea, Henry Stuart appeared to grow tired of
waiting; for he laid himself down on the shore, turned his back on the
ocean, pillowed his head on a tuft of grass, and deliberately went to
sleep.

Now was the time for the savage to wreak his vengeance on his enemy;
but, fortunately, that villain, despite his subtlety and cunning, had
not conceived the possibility of the youth indulging in such an
unnatural recreation as a nap in the forenoon. He had, therefore,
retired to his native jungle, and during the hour in which Henry was
buried in repose, and in which he might have accomplished his end
without danger or uncertainty, he was seated in a dark, cave, moodily
resolving in his mind future plans of villainy, and, indulging the hope
that on the youth's returning homeward be would be more successful in
finding a favorable opportunity to take his life.

During this same hour it was that our low-hulled little schooner hove in
sight on the horizon, ran swiftly down before the breeze, cast a