rs the case, sir, and we must stand to our guns and fight
her."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Timmins," answered the master, laying his
hand on the mate's arm.

"Turn the hands up, my good fellow, and let them go to quarters." (The
people were at their breakfast.) "We will not fire the first shot; but
if she attacks us, we will give it them as well as we can. One
satisfaction is, that they cannot board us while the gale lasts." While
the mate flew forward to execute the orders, Bowse approached his
passengers, and, pointing out the stranger to them, to which they were
now rapidly drawing near, told them his suspicions as to her character,
and advised them to go below.

"But do you think he will fire into us?" inquired the colonel.

"He would gain little by so doing, while the gale lasts," replied Bowse,
"and he might get injured in return, as he probably knows that we have
guns on board."

"There you see, Ada, there is little chance of any of us being hurt, but
there is a possibility--so you must go below again."

This the colonel said in a positive tone, and his niece was obliged to
comply.

"Oh, how I wish Captain Fleetwood was here in the _Ione_," she thought,
as she quitted the deck. "No pirate would dare to molest us."

The stranger was hove to, under her fore-topsail, and appeared to be
making what seamen call very fine weather of it. The _Zodiac_ came down
scarcely a cable's length from her quarter, but the stranger gave no
sign of any intention of accompanying her. Very few seamen appeared on
her deck, and two or three officers only, whose uniform, seen through
the glass, was evidently that of Austria. One of them, who, from his
wearing an epaulette on either shoulder, Bowse thought must be the
captain, leaped up on the taffrail, and waved his hat to them, while
another, in the _lingua franca_, sung out through a speaking trumpet--

"Heave to, and we will keep your company."

"I'll see you damned first, my fine fellow," answered the master, who
had been attentively surveying them through his glass. "I wish I was as
certain of heaven as I am that the fellow who waved to us is the same
who came on board when in Malta harbour. I know his face, spite of his
changed dress."

"I don't think he's unlike, except that he didn't look so tall quite as
the Greek you mean," observed the mate. "However, as they did not fire
at us, and don't seem inclined to keep company with us either, I suppose
they