Gaul, divided into three parts, we sailed on our
wholly indefinite voyage; and all I could do was to live from day to
day, or hour to hour. I was content, for Helena was there. Indeed, I
question if, these last three years, her image had not been always
present in my consciousness; such are the fevers of our unreasoning
blood, such the power of that madness known as love.

But, thus divided as was our company, I had none such excellent
opportunity for often seeing Helena, as might at first be supposed.
She and her aunt refused to join us at any meal in the dining saloon;
although, now and then, they came for breakfast to what Auntie Lucinda
with scorn called the "second table". It was not feasible for me,
often, to do more than call of a morning to inquire if all was well
with them; and conversation through a lead-glass transom is not what
one would call intimate. Helena could bar her door if she liked in
more ways than one; and against the fences that she raised against me
one way or another, what with headaches, whims or Aunt Lucinda, I had
now no chance to meet her alone save as she herself might dictate. So
that, after all, though now I stood as commander of the _Belle Helene_
in place of yon varlet, Cal Davidson, although I ate his ship's
stores, wore, indeed, his waistcoats and his neckties when that was
humanly possible, I was his successor only and not his equal. He
could--nay, had done so--meet Helena as he liked, at meals, on deck,
on a thousand errands, whereas I was helpless to do so. He could talk
with her all over the ship, take her alone on deck of a moonlit night,
listen to her sing, gaze--oh, curse him!--on the little curls on
Helena's neck--but no! I could not endure that thought. The round
white neck, the white shoulders, the soft curves beneath the
peignoir's careless irreverences--why, it was an intolerable thought
that any man should raise eye or heart or thought to Helena, save
myself. So, this morning, after that rare and unconventional meeting
on the after deck, one easily may see how much I wished all Gaul were
divided into but two parts, and that the occupants of the reserved
after cabin would come to lunch in the saloon with their captors,
Black Bart, Jean Lafitte and Henri L'Olonnois.

Now, 'tis an odd thing, but one of my superstitions, that when we wish
much and fervently and cleanly for any certain thing, one day that
thing is ours. Some day, some time, some hour or instant, our dear
de