nderful!"

"Aye, colonel, and more than that! But for the lad seeing this mirage,
or whatever else it was, and telling me about it, we would not have gone
off our course in search of you to render what assistance we could--
yours being the `ship in distress' Haldane reported having sighted to
the southward. This divergence from our track, sir, took us into the
very teeth of the gale which we encountered later on, that same evening,
and conduced to our breaking down."

"Faith," put in Garry O'Neil, "that's thrue for sure, sor!"

"This breakdown of ours, colonel, led to our drifting to the southward
into the trail of the Gulf Stream," continued the skipper, following up
the strange sequence of events as they occurred, one by one. "Your
ship--the real ship, I mean--was drifting north and east meanwhile,
carried along by the same current, and then it came about that, although
apparently going in opposite directions and acted on by different
causes, our tracks _crossed each other on the chart last night_--at
least, that is my opinion."

"I see, I see," cried Colonel Vereker quickly, interrupting him, and in
a state of great excitement. "Thank God! But for that you would never
have sighted our drifting boat and picked up myself and poor Captain
Alphonse! Thank God, Senor Haldane saw us in that mysterious way. It
seems to have been an interposition of heaven to warn you of our peril
and bring you to our aid!"

"Just so, colonel; that's what I think myself now," said the skipper
impressively, taking off his cap and looking upward with a grave
reflective air. "Aye, and I thank God, too, for putting us in the way
of helping you, with all my heart, sir!"

"Ah!" observed old Mr Stokes, who had remained silent the while. "The
ways of Providence are as wonderful as they are mysterious!"

There was a pause after this in our conversation which no one seemed
anxious to break till Garry O'Neil spoke.

"Faith, sor, you haven't tould us yit how ye come by this wound in your
leg, an' about that poor chap in yander," he said to the colonel,
nodding his head in the direction of Captain Applegarth's inner state
cabin, where the French captain was lying in his cot. "Sure, we're
dyin' to hear the end of your scrimmage with those black divvles!"

Colonel Vereker heaved a sigh.

"Well, I ought not to doubt that the good God is watching over my
little, darling daughter after what I have just learnt, my friends,"
said he in a m