mined the locks of
the fire-arms; the gunner paraded his wads, and opened the magazine
beneath the cabin floor. Morton, to whom Captain Williams had deputed
the charge of the two females, descended to the steerage, attended by
two or three seamen, and hauled all the spare sails out of the
sail-room, with which he formed a small hollow coil in the cable tier.
These sails, being formed into long hard rolls and placed upon the
cables, formed a rampart that, from its non-elasticity, would more
effectually check the progress of a round shot than a greater thickness
of oak plank.

Having finished the castle, he could not forbear passing into the cabin
to see its future occupant. Isabella received him with a blush and a
smile.

"What is the meaning of all this noise and bustle overhead?" said she.

"There is a strange ship in sight," said Morton, after a pause, "and we
are almost sure that she has hostile intentions towards us." Isabella
became pale as marble. "It is, in short, the man-of-war that was in St.
Blas when we left there."

"Good God!" said the young lady, clasping her hands in agony, "what will
become of us?"

"Do not allow yourself to be overcome with causeless alarm; we shall, if
possible, run away; but if not, we must resort to certain arguments to
convince her commander and crew of the impropriety and rudeness of their
interfering in an affair that does not concern them."

"But if we are taken, what will become of you?"

"I suspect, dearest Isabella, that you will search in vain through the
Albatross to find a single person, man or boy, that is prepared to
admit the probability, nay, even the possibility, of such a conclusion.
We are nominally inferior, but in reality superior, to our antagonist.
In the mean time, I have been preparing a place of safety for you and
Transita, where it is next to impossible that you should be in the way
of danger."

"But you," said she, looking at him with tearful eyes.

"My life, my sweet girl, is in the hands of Him that gave it; and to His
watchful care and boundless goodness I cheerfully and confidingly commit
it."

"But if you are taken--such a thing is at least possible."

"Such an event is, as you say, possible. In that case, your Mexican
friends must be content to work their revenge upon my dead body, for I
am determined that the living Charles Morton shall never become an
object for Spanish vengeance to exhaust its ingenuity upon. But I must
leave you for