urn warm to her gallantries, and the
Stuarts repeat those blunders and crimes which terminated in the
headsman or in banishment.

But these are my thoughts of to-day; I was of another temper whilst I
sat smoking and listening to the snoring of Monsieur Jules Tassard. Now
that I had a companion should I be able to escape from this horrid
situation? He had spoken of chests of silver--where was the treasure? in
the run? There might be booty enough in the hold to make a great man, a
fine gentleman of me ashore. It would be a noble ending to an amazing
adventure to come off with as much money as would render me independent
for life, and enable me to turn my back for ever upon the hardest
calling to which the destiny of man can wed him.

Of such were the fancies which hurried through my mind, coupled with
visitations of awe and wonder when I cast my eyes upon the sleeping
Frenchman. After all it was ridiculous that I should feel mortified
because he supposed me crazy in the matter of dates. How was it
conceivable he should believe he had lain lifeless for eight-and-forty
years? I knew a man who after a terrible adventure had slept three days
and nights without stirring; the assurances of the people about him
failed to persuade him that he had slumbered so long, and it was not
until he walked abroad and met a hundred evidences as to the passage of
the time during which he had slept that he allowed himself to become
convinced.

I wished to see how the schooner lay and what change had befallen the
ice in the night, and went on deck. It was blowing a whole gale of wind
from the north-west. Inside the ship, with the hatches on, and protected
moreover by the sides of the hollow in which she lay, it would have been
impossible to guess at the weight of the gale, though all along I had
supposed it to be storming pretty fiercely by the thunderous humming
noise which resounded in the cabin. But I had no notion that so great a
wind raged till I gained the deck and heard the prodigious bellowing of
it above the rocks. The sky was one great cloud of slate, and there was
no flying darkness or yellow scud to give the least movement of life to
it. The sea was swelling very furiously, and I could divine its
tempestuous character by clouds of spray which sped like volumes of
steam under the sullen dusky heavens high over the mastheads. The
schooner lay with a list of about fifteen degrees and her bows high
cocked. I looked over the stern and