e held out for inspection a curious
little seal which Reuben at once recognized as the same which he
himself had given to Eve.

The unexpected sight came upon him with such surprise that, had not the
height of the little table served as a screen to shelter him from view,
his sudden movement must have betrayed his wakefulness.

"He's a nice one for any woman to be tied to, he is!" replied the
younger of the two sailors. "Why, the only time as I ever had what you
may call a fair look at un was one night in to the King o' Proosia's,
and there he was dealing out his soft sawder to little Nancy Lagassick
as if he couldn't live a minute out o' her sight."

"That's about it," laughed the soldier. "He's one of your own sort
there: you Jacks are all alike, with a wife in every port. However," he
added--and as he spoke he gave a complacent stroke to his good-looking
face--"he may thank his stars that a matter of seven miles or so lays
between his pretty Eve and Captain Van Courtland's troop, or there'd
have been a cutting-out expedition that, saving the presence of those I
speak before"--and he gave a most exasperating wink--"might have proved
a trifle more successful than such things have of late."

"Here, I say," said the sailor, flaming up at this ill-timed
jocularity, "p'ra'ps you'll tell me what 'tis you're drivin' at; for
I've got to hear of it if you, or any o' your cloth either, ever made a
find yet. You're mighty 'cute 'bout other folks, though when the
spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through
'twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn't lay hold on a single cask.
'Tis true we mayn't have nabbed the men, but by jingo if 't has come to
us bein' made fools of by the women!"

"There, now, stash it there!" said his older comrade, who had no wish
to see a quarrel ensue. "So far as I can see, there's no cause for
bounce 'twixt either o' us; though only you give us a chance of getting
near to them, sergeant," he said, turning to the soldier, "and I'll
promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy
while her lover's cutting capers under Tyburn tree."

"'A chance?'" repeated his companion, despondingly: "where's it to come
from, and the only one we'd got cut away from under us by those Hart
chaps?"

"How so? where's the Hart off to, then?" asked the sergeant.

"Off to Port Mellint," said the man addressed. "Nothing but a hoax, I
fancy, but still she was bound to go;" and s