rboard had not a mutineer from behind felled him a second time.

When Rosco heard what had been done he ran furiously on deck, but one
glance at the dark sea, as the schooner rushed swiftly over it sufficed
to show him that the poor boy's case was hopeless.

But Orley's case was not as hopeless as it seemed. The plunge revived
him. Accustomed to swim for hours at a time in these warm waters, he
found no difficulty in supporting himself. Of course his progress was
aimless, for he could not see any distance around him, but a friend had
been raised up for him in that desperate hour. At the moment he had
been tossed overboard, a sailor, with a touch of pity left in his breast
had seized a life-buoy and thrown it after him. Orlando, after swimming
about for a few minutes, struck against this buoy by chance--if we may
venture to use that word in the circumstances.

Seizing the life-preserver with an earnest "thank God" in his heart if
not on his lips, he clung to it and looked anxiously around.

The sight was sufficiently appalling. Thick darkness still brooded on
the deep, and nothing was visible save, now and then, the crest of a
breaking wave as it passed close to him, or, rolling under him, deluged
his face with spray.

CHAPTER TWO.

When Antonio Zeppa recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on a
mattress in the schooner's hold, bound, bleeding, and with a dull and
dreadful sense of pain at his breast, which at first he could not
account for. Ere long the sudden plash of a wave on the vessel's side
recalled his mind to his bereavement; and a cry--loud, long, and
terrible--arose from the vessel's hold, which caused even the stoutest
and most reckless heart on board to quail.

Richard Rosco--now a pirate captain--heard it as he sat alone in his
cabin, his elbows resting on the table, and his white face buried in his
hands. He did not repent--he could not repent; at least so he said to
himself while the fires kindled by a first great crime consumed him.

Men do not reach the profoundest depths of wickedness at one bound. The
descent is always graduated--for there are successive rounds to the
ladder of sin--but it is sometimes awfully sudden. When young Rosco
left England he had committed only deeds which men are apt lightly to
name the "follies" of youth. These follies, however, had proved to be
terrible leaks through which streams of corruption had flowed in upon
his soul. Still, he had no th