uneasily over the heavy seas which came rolling in. Now she rose, now
she pitched into them, as they passed under her, while the spray in
thick showers broke over her bows.

Still the stout cable held, although the lieutenant cast many an anxious
look astern, where little more than a quarter of a mile away the
breakers burst with a continual roar on the rock-bound coast. They
could distinguish the entrance to the passage some distance to the
northward, but even had all the masts of the "Venus" been standing, and
a strong crew been ready to make sail, the difficulty of gaining it
would have been very great. Should the French prisoners have succeeded
in carrying out their design, the frigate would have been cast away.
The fate of the wounded would have been certain, and few of those on
board would have escaped.

Ashurst still continued his ill-treatment of Owen. Nat saw him again
strike him.

"It is the last time he shall do that," exclaimed Nat, who was a witness
of what took place.

Without speaking to Owen, he hurried aft to where Mr Leigh was
standing.

"Please, sir, I've something to say to you," said Nat, touching his hat.

"What is it, boy?" asked the lieutenant, concluding that Nat had to give
him some information regarding the conduct of the French prisoners.
"Are the fellows down below inclined to be mutinous?"

"I don't think so, sir," answered Nat; "but what I want to say is about
Mr Owen Hartley, who first found out their plot and saved us all from
having our throats cut. He is a gentleman, sir, and came out with us as
a passenger on board the `Druid,' and I think, sir, if this had been
known, he would not have been sent forward amongst us boys. Mr
Scoones, our first mate, who pretended to be the captain, knows it as
well as I do, but he had a spite against Mr Hartley, and so declared
that he was a ship's boy, and allowed him to be rated as such on board
the `Sylvia.' Mike Coffey, who belonged to the old ship, will tell you,
sir, that what I say is true."

"I am ready to believe what you say, and when we return on board the
frigate I will speak to the captain on the subject. But what makes you
come up now to say this? I wish that you had given me the information
before."

"Please, sir, Mr Hartley didn't wish me to do that," answered Nat, "but
I could stand it no longer when I saw, every hour in the day, Mr
Ashurst knocking him about and abusing him as if he were a dog. He
won't complain