oper amount
of deliberation, had despatched the _Ariadne_ in search of the piratical
brig.

Is there anything else to tell? I think not, except it be to mention
that Miss Onslow was the heroine of the ship, and every man, fore and
aft, her devoted slave during our passage to the Cape, where the six
survivors of O'Gorman's gang were duly put upon their trial for piracy
upon the high seas. The man Harry, acting upon my advice, offered to
turn Queen's Evidence; and the favourable report that I was able to make
of his conduct caused his offer to be accepted, with the result that he
received a free pardon, while Dirk the Dutchman was sentenced to death,
and the other four to penal servitude for life; the Dutchman, however,
cheated the gallows by _dying_ in prison of his wounds, after lingering
for so long a time that it seemed as though he would after all recover.

"And the gems that were the prime cause of so much of your trouble--what
became of them?" I fancy I hear some fair reader exclaim.

Well, there proved to be such insuperable difficulties in the way of
establishing their rightful ownership that the Home Government very
kindly undertook the charge of them until the man who could
satisfactorily prove his right to them should put in an appearance. It
was a marvellously curious circumstance, however, that I should have
happened to anticipate this precise difficulty and its probable
solution, almost at the moment when I first identified the distant
_Ariadne_ as a man-o'-war; with the result that--well, there is no need
to be _too_ explicit, is there? it will perhaps suffice if I say that
the seaman Harry is to-day living very comfortably indeed as an
independent gentleman of considerable means; while the four magnificent
suites of jewellery--rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and pearls--that Mrs
Charles Conyers, _nee_ Florence Onslow, sports from time to time are the
eternal envy and admiration of all who get the opportunity to see them.

THE END.

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