If there had been any better promptings in the heart of Robert Bramble,
they would have turned the balance in favor of his brother, and he would
have befriended him; but this he did not do. He walked his room,
bitterly musing upon the singular position of affairs, while he knew
very well that Charles lay in chains on board his ship in the harbor.
Then he recalled the memory of his parents, as connected with this state
of affairs. The father was dead, the mother, a weak-minded woman, was
also bowed by ill-health; indeed, their early lives had few happy
associations. Robert himself had embittered all its relations.

It was nearly midnight, and the moon had sunk behind the hill that
sheltered the harbor on the north, leaving the dark water of the bay in
deep shadow. At long gunshot from the shore lay the ship in which
Charles Bramble was confined. All was still as death, save the pace of
the sentinel in the ship's waist, and a ripple now and then of tide-way
against the ship's cable. An observant eye, from the leeward side of the
ship, might have seen a dark form creep out from one of the quarter
ports, and gradually make its way along the moulding of the water-lines
toward the larboard bow ports, one of which it stealthily entered.

Entering with this figure, we shall soon find it to be Leonard Hust, who
now, watching an opportunity, slipped into the apartment where the young
commander had been confined since he left the factory of Don Leonardo.
No sooner was the door closed quietly, so as to avoid the observation of
the watch between decks, than the new comer opened a secret lantern and
discovered himself to the prisoner, at the same time cautioning him to
silence.

"Who are you?" coolly asked Charles Bramble, for thus we must know him
in future.

"Leonard Hust," was the reply; "your friend, as I will soon prove."

"But it is only a few hours since you were giving witness against me."

"That is true; but bless you, sir, there has been a great change in
matters since that."

"So I thought, by the movements I observed, though I did not understand
them."

"Hist! speak low, sir," said the other, "and while I am talking to you,
just let me, at the same time, be filing off these steel ornaments upon
your wrists!"

"File them off? Well, then, you must, indeed, be a friend," said the
prisoner.

"Leave me to prove that. Sit here, so the light will fall on them, with
your back this way, that will keep the light from s