ice Frere briefly recapitulated what had taken place, taking
care, however, to pass over his own dereliction of duty as rapidly as
possible.

Pine knit his brows. "Do you think that she was in the plot?" he asked.

"Not she!" says Frere--eager to avert inquiry. "How should she be? Plot!
She's sickening of fever, or I'm much mistaken."

Sure enough, on opening the door of the cabin, they found Sarah Purfoy
lying where she had fallen a quarter of an hour before. The clashing of
cutlasses and the firing of muskets had not roused her.

"We must make a sick-bay somewhere," says Pine, looking at the senseless
figure with no kindly glance; "though I don't think she's likely to be
very bad. Confound her! I believe that she's the cause of all this. I'll
find out, too, before many hours are over; for I've told those fellows
that unless they confess all about it before to-morrow morning, I'll get
them six dozen a-piece the day after we anchor in Hobart Town. I've a
great mind to do it before we get there. Take her head, Frere, and we'll
get her out of this before Vickers comes up. What a fool you are, to be
sure! I knew what it would be with women aboard ship. I wonder Mrs. V.
hasn't been out before now. There--steady past the door. Why, man, one
would think you never had your arm round a girl's waist before! Pooh!
don't look so scared--I won't tell. Make haste, now, before that little
parson comes. Parsons are regular old women to chatter"; and thus
muttering Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers's maid into her cabin.

"By George, but she's a fine girl!" he said, viewing the inanimate body
with the professional eye of a surgeon. "I don't wonder at you making
a fool of yourself. Chances are, you've caught the fever, though this
breeze will help to blow it out of us, please God. That old jackass,
Blunt, too!--he ought to be ashamed of himself, at his age!"

"What do you mean?" asked Frere hastily, as he heard a step approach.
"What has Blunt to say about her?"

"Oh, I don't know," returned Pine. "He was smitten too, that's all. Like
a good many more, in fact."

"A good many more!" repeated the other, with a pretence of carelessness.

"Yes!" laughed Pine. "Why, man, she was making eyes at every man in the
ship! I caught her kissing a soldier once."

Maurice Frere's cheeks grew hot. The experienced profligate had been
taken in, deceived, perhaps laughed at. All the time he had flattered
himself that he was fascinating the bl