with the pleased eye of a seaman, the rapid way in which the vessel
glided over the crisp curling waves. "The fellows know how to handle
her too; but what is she about now, I wonder? I thought, by the way she
first steered, she was bound for Sicily, but there she goes running off
to the south-east. I cannot be mistaken." And he took a scrutinising
glance at her with his telescope. "Yes, that is her, there can be no
doubt about the matter."

Now love makes most men sharp-witted in everything regarding the object
of their affection, and Captain Fleetwood was certainly not a man to be
less so than any other person.

The sudden change in the course of the speronara had given rise in his
mind to sundry suspicions. They were not very serious, and probably,
under other circumstances, he would not have entertained them; but he
was out of spirits and fatigued, and he could not help connecting the
movements of the speronara with the sailing of the _Zodiac_, on board
which vessel Ada and her uncle were that evening to commence their
voyage. He did not, however, suppose that a craft of her character
would venture to attack an armed brig of the size of the _Zodiac_,
unless she could take her by surprise, nor could she have any chance of
success against so brave and good a seaman as Captain. Bowse, and so
fine a crew as his; but at the same time he thought it would be more
prudent to let him know what he had seen, and urge him to be on his
guard against the speronara.

"I never heard of one of those fellows committing piracy--probably he is
up to some smuggling trick--perhaps he expects to fall in with some
vessel, and will take her goods out of her during the night, to run them
on the Sicilian or Italian coast; perhaps to put that good-looking
fellow of a Greek prince, if that is him, on board some craft or other
bound eastward. However, I must speak to Bowse about it. I wish to
heaven I might sail and convoy the brig; but the admiral would not give
me leave if I was to ask him--he would only think it was an excuse to be
near Miss Garden."

These thoughts passed through his mind as he hurried down to the quay,
where his boat was waiting for him, and jumping into her, he started for
the _Zodiac_. He had made the acquaintance of the honest master, on
finding that the colonel and his niece were going by his vessel, and he
had been every day on board to assist in arranging Ada's cabin, and to
suggest many little alteratio