spy-glass out of the cabin, somebody!" hailed Farmer from
the forecastle. The glass--a very powerful one and a favourite
instrument with the murdered captain--was handed him by one of the
quarter-masters, and he applied it to his eye. A breathless silence now
prevailed fore and aft for the stranger had all the look of a British
man-of-war, and everybody was waiting to hear what Farmer's verdict
would be. The inspection was a long-sustained and evidently anxious
one. At length, dropping the glass into the hollow of his arm Farmer
turned and said:

"Bring Mr Southcott on deck, and let us hear his opinion of yonder
hooker."

In a few minutes the master was escorted on deck by a couple of armed
seamen, and led forward to where Farmer was standing.

"Mr Southcott," said the mutineer, turning toward the individual
addressed, and perceptibly shrinking as their glance met, "be good
enough to take this glass, and let me know wha' you think of the
stranger yonder."

"Stranger!" ejaculated Southcott. "Where away? Ah, I see her!" and he
took the glass from Farmer's extended hand.

"Well, what think you of her?" asked Farmer impatiently, after the
master had been silently working away with the glass for some two or
three minutes.

"One moment, please," answered Southcott with his eye still glued to the
tube; "I think--but I am not quite sure--if she would only keep just the
merest trifle more away--so as to permit of my catching a glimpse--"

"Sail ho!" shouted a man in the fore-top; "two of 'em, a brig and a ship
on the starboard beam, away in under the land there!"

Farmer unceremoniously snatched the glass away from the master and
levelled it in the direction indicated.

"Ay, ay, I see them," said he. "That is the _Drake_ nearest us, and the
_Favourite_ inshore of her. They are all right; we have nothing to fear
from them. It is this stranger here ahead of us that bothers me. Come,
Mr Southcott," he continued, "you ought to know something about her by
this time--you have been looking at her long enough; do you think you
ever saw her before?"

The master took the glass, had another long squint at the ship ahead,
then handed the instrument back to Farmer, with the answer:

"I decline to say whether I have or not."

"That is enough," said Farmer; "your answer but confirms me in my
conviction as to the identity of yonder frigate. It is the _Mermaid_.
Speak, sir, is it not so?"

"You are right, Farmer, it _