thout breaking its mirror-like surface; "I've seen one or two
fine vessels caught that way, just hereabouts, and go right down in the
middle of the breakers."

Montague smiled, and the commander-in-chief of the Sandy Cove army fired
innumerable broadsides from his mouth with redoubled energy.

"That is not a cheering piece of information," said he, "especially when
one has reason to believe that a false man stands at the helm."

Montague uttered the latter part of his speech in a subdued earnest
voice, and the matter-of-fact Ole turned his eyes slowly towards the man
at the wheel; but observing that he who presided there was a short, fat,
commonplace, and uncommonly jolly-looking seaman, he merely uttered a
grunt and looked at Montague inquiringly.

"Nay, I mean not the man who actually holds the spokes of the wheel, but
he who guides the ship."

Thorwald glanced at Gascoyne, whose figure was dimly visible in the fore
part of the ship, and then looking at Montague in surprise shook his
head gravely, as if to say--

"I'm still in the dark--go on."

"Can Mr Thorwald put out his pipe for a few minutes and accompany me to
the cabin? I would have a little converse on this matter in private."

Ole hesitated.

"Well, then," said the other, smiling, "you may take the pipe with you,
although it is against rules to smoke in my cabin--but I'll make an
exception in your case."

Ole smiled, bowed, and, thanking the captain for his courtesy, descended
to the cabin along with him and sat down on a sofa in the darkest corner
of it. Here he smoked vehemently, while his companion, assuming a
rather mysterious air, said in an under tone--

"You have heard, of course, that the pirate Durward has been seen, or
heard of, in those seas?"

Ole nodded.

"Has it ever struck you that this Gascoyne, as he calls himself, knows
more about the pirate than he chooses to tell?"

"Never," replied Ole. Indeed nothing ever did _strike_ the stout
commander-in-chief of the forces. All new ideas came to him by slow
degrees, and did not readily find admission to his perceptive faculties.
But when they did gain an entrance into his thick head, nothing was
ever known to drive them out again. As he did not seem inclined to
comment on the hint thrown out by his companion, Montague continued, in
a still more impressive tone--

"What would you say if this Gascoyne himself turned out to be the
pirate?"

The idea being a simple one, and the