e of the say!" says I.

"Murther!" says he.

"Moighty like it," says I; "but he'll do it!"

"I'd have to give up the ghost then!" says he.

"You would, in airnest!" I tould him. "But you mustn't do it yet.
Tell me how you come on boord?"

"I will," says he. "When the boys found me, I had only a flesh wound,
and had fainted from loss of blood. They got a car, and smuggled me
down to Cork. I had scarcely set my fut on deck, as the peelers came
rowing up the side. When the order was given to muster all hands, I
made my way to the hould, and hid myself in the straw in an empty crate
in the darkest corner of the place. The men searched pretty closely,
but, as good luck would have it, they passed by my hiding-place."

"You must go back to it. But now, Miles O'Rourke, answer me one
question, and, as you are a man, answer it truly!"

"What is it?"

"Did you kill the agint?"

Wake as was O'Rourke, he stood grandly up; the ould honest, proud look
came into his pale, wasted, but still handsome face; and pointing his
long, thin finger to heaven, he said, in a deep, low tone, the
earnestness of which I shall never forget to my dying day, "_As I hope
for justice some day here, and mercy hereafter_, I did not!"

The hug I gave him would have broken many a strong man's ribs, let alone
a ghost's; but I couldn't help it. Bedad, if I had been a Roosian bear
itself, that hug would have been a credit to me.

"What on earth am I to do?" asked Miles.

"Anything you plase," says I, "whin you get there! But you are on the
water now, worse luck--and that's what bothers me. I wouldn't give a
thrawneen for your life, if you are discovered and recognised as Miles
O'Rourke. There's two hundred pounds reward offered for you, and the
evidence seems pretty strong against you."

"How would they know me?" says he. "You didn't--and no wonder! Shure
whin I came on boord I weighed fourteen stone; and now, ten stone in the
one scale would pitch me up to the ceiling out of the other!"

"That's thrue enough," says I; "but you must bear in mind I tuck you for
somebody else's ghost, and didn't make any allowance for the starving
you have had, which, particularly as a stowaway, they would be sure to
do. But now you must get back to the hould. I'll contrive to drop half
my rations and a trifle of grog down every day--see Mary, and consult
with her. Shure, one woman's wit is worth a dozen men's in a case like
this."

"But--" says