The strangers remained scarcely a minute below, and respectfully wishing
the occupants of the cabin a good evening, they took their leave. The
elder went first, and as the second followed, he appeared to stumble at
the door. As he did so, he let a folded paper fall from his hand, and,
at the same instant, he gave a hurried glance at Ada over his shoulder.
Before she had time to tell him of his loss, he had sprung up the
companion-ladder. The strangers were quickly in their boat, which, with
rapid strokes, pulled back towards the speronara.

"Up with the helm, my lad," exclaimed the captain, in a hurried tone, to
the man at the wheel, as soon as the boat left the side, "haul aft the
head sheets--ease off the main sheet; Mr Timmins, we'll keep her on her
right course."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the mate--shouting as the brig's head fell off,
"square away the head yards, my men; come, be sharp about it."

"And what do you think, Timmins, of those fellows' account of the
Austrian brig and the pirate? It seems somewhat strange, doesn't it?"
said Bowse, as he walked the deck with his first officer as soon as they
had put the ship on her former course. The speronara still lay hove to
right astern, her outline every instant becoming more indistinct as the
brig ran from her.

"Why, sir," replied the mate, in return to his commander's question. "I
don't think any good of it, and that's a fact; but if you ask if I
believe it, I don't do that neither. These Italians are much given to
lying at best, as far as my experience goes; and I believe we have just
heard a pretty round lie, though I don't say there was no truth
altogether in it. To my mind, if there is such a chap as that Zap--what
do they call him, the pirate--it is much more likely that he is on board
that felucca, or perhaps he was one of the fellows who came on board us,
than that an Austrian man-of-war brig should have sent her cruising
about to give notice of him to English merchantmen."

"Well, Timmins, that's my view of the case," replied Bowse; "I think the
Austrian brig would have stood on to Malta herself, seeing she must have
been almost in sight of it, instead of sending a craft of that sort with
a message. Besides, what business had the speronara there at all?"

"There's something very suspicious about it, at all events," returned
the mate. "Now, though I don't often listen to what the men say,
Captain Bowse, and they generally get hold of the wron