ose to trouble Squire Saunders or the courts with
his affair. But he did not know where to find Dock, and was not aware
that he lived in the house nearest to the landing-place. He did not
exactly like the idea of passing the night in the open air, and it
would not be etiquette for him to apply to Mr. Watson or the captain
for a lodging.

The steward was not only a philosopher, but a man of expedients. On his
way up to the town in the morning he had noticed a dilapidated
fish-house, at the head of a little inlet. This building would afford
him a shelter, if nothing more, for the night, and he repaired to its
friendly but inhospitable roof. Entering the fish-house, he groped
about for a suitable place to lie down, and blundered against a rickety
flight of stairs in one corner. Hoping to find better sleeping
accommodation in the loft than on the ground floor,--as literally it
was, being composed of earth and rocks,--he ascended the steps. The
stairs creaked and groaned, and it required some nerve to go up in the
dark; but the steward's courage was equal to the emergency.

He found that it was not safe to walk about on the floor of the loft in
the dark, for the timbers groaned under his weight, and the boards were
full of holes and traps; but near the head of the stairs was an old
sail, which seemed to have been placed there for his especial
accommodation. Lying down on this, he wooed the slumber which his head,
still dizzy from the effects of the blow, required.

"I'm all right now," said he to himself. "It smells fishy; I will call
it Hotel de Poisson, and go to sleep."

While the steward was seeking a resting-place for his weary head, Dock
Vincent walked down to the Point to ascertain whether or not he had
killed his victim. He was gone, and the ruffian went home again.

Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier could not go to sleep in his hotel as readily
as he desired; but, just as he was dropping off, he was startled by the
sound of voices, in low, suppressed tones, hardly above a whisper. He
heard footsteps, and then the dim light of a lantern shed its rays up
through the holes and cracks in the floor. In vain he tried to identify
the voices; the whispers did not enable him to do so. He dared not move
lest the creaking of the timbers should alarm the nocturnal visitors.

He was satisfied that the persons below were engaged in some kind of
mischief, and it was his business to know what it was, and who the men
were. Near the cent