erved Bowse. "Here, Timmins, you
speak a little Italian--just ask this gentleman what he wants aboard
here."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the mate coming forward, and asking the question in
execrable Italian.

Again the stranger shook his head, as if not comprehending the question,
and finding that not much progress was likely to be made at this rate,
he turned round, and leaning through the gangway, beckoned his companion
to come on deck. As he drew back, another person appeared, dressed
precisely in the same manner; but evidently very much younger. A long
moustache shaded his mouth, and wild elf-locks concealed the greater
portion of his face, and from a patch down one side of his cheek, he
looked as if, like his elder companion, he had been engaged in some
severe fighting. The light of the lantern, as he reached the deck,
seemed particularly to annoy him, and he stood with his eyes cast on the
deck, shading them with one of his hands, nor could he meet the glance
of any of those surrounding him.

"What do you wish to explain?" said the second stranger in Italian,
bowing with a not ungraceful bend, and a touch of his hand to his cap.

"Oh! you can speak, can you? Well, that's all right," said Timmins.
"And now, if you please, tell us why it is the felucca there was so
anxious to speak to us?"

"_Si, signor_," answered the younger stranger, very slowly; and in an
Italian which was mostly understood, he then explained that the
speronara, of which his father was master, had, that afternoon, fallen
in with an Austrian man-of-war brig, which had brought her to, and sent
a boat on board her. The officers, he said, informed them that the
noted Greek pirate Zappa, in his famous brig the _Sea Hawk_, had lately
been heard of not far from the mouth of the Adriatic, and that he had
plundered and destroyed several vessels. The Austrian, he said, had
given him despatches for the governor of Malta, relative to the subject,
as also to the Neapolitan Government, with a reward for carrying them,
and had charged them to inform all vessels they should fall in with of
what had occurred.

"Then he did not tell you to speak us in particular," said Timmins.

"_Si, signor_, he expressly--oh! no--not you in particular--oh, no,"
replied the young man.

"Have you nothing further to tell us?" said Timmins. "Because you see,
though we are much obliged to you for your information, we are in a
hurry to be on our course again, and if you sh