ehind and all the men to be found had hurried on board
the ships directly the hurricane burst; additional hawsers had been got
out; the topmasts had been struck, and everything necessary had been
done. It was rather provoking to find that they might have remained on
at the ball, but satisfactory to feel that all was right, and that they
had done their duty. In almost any other harbour in the West Indies the
case might have been very different. They, of course, spent the rest of
the night on board.

Nothing had been seen of the drogher, and Jack and Adair agreed that
should she not appear in two or three days they would get leave to go in
search of her. She might have been wrecked on one of the neighbouring
islands, and the party on board be unable to obtain the means of
returning. By noon the next day the hurricane had ceased, and Murray
accompanied Colonel O'Regan to Saint John's, followed by a servant
leading Stella's horse, and carrying her riding-habit. In every
direction the havoc caused by the storm was visible; cottages blown down
or unroofed, sugar-canes laid low, fruit-trees upturned or stripped of
their fruit; in many places the road was almost impassable; but
labourers were at work with saws and axes clearing away the trunks which
lay across it. In the evening, when the air was comparatively cool and
refreshing, Murray rode back with Stella. The colonel was detained by a
person on business just as they were setting off, and begged that they
would ride on, saying that he would overtake them. Alick said more than
he had ever before ventured to do. Stella turned away her head while he
was speaking; then, lifting her eyes to his face with an expression in
hers certainly not of annoyance or anger, she answered--

"You have your profession, Mr Murray. You assuredly do not contemplate
quitting that, and I am the daughter of one the world calls an
adventurer. I cannot desert him while he allows me to bear him company,
and I know not in what direction his fate may lead him. Perchance your
regard for me may prove but a passing fancy, and you would regret having
bound yourself to one whom, after we part on this occasion, you may not
meet again for years, when she may be so changed, as everything we see
around us changes, that you would not recognise her. I know too well
that this has been the case with others--why not with us?"

Her voice trembled as she uttered the last sentences. Murray urged
every pl