his rank and the usages of navies, and I thought it prudent to receive his excuses in a way to avoid an open rupture.  Sennit was left in possession of the state-room, but I remained in the steerage; consenting, however, to mess in the cabin.  This arrangement, which was altogether premeditated on my part, gave me many opportunities of consulting privately with Marble; and of making sundry preparations for profiting by the first occasion that should offer to re-take the ship.  In that day, re-captures were of pretty frequent occurrence; and I no sooner understood the Dawn was to be sent in, than I began to reflect on the means of effecting my purpose.  Marble had been kept in the ship by me, expressly with this object.

I suppose the reader to have a general idea of the position of the vessel, as well as of the circumstances in which she was placed.  We were just three hundred and fifty-two miles to the southward and westward of Scilly, when I observed at meridian, and the wind blowing fresh from the south-south-west, there was no time to lose, did I meditate anything serious against the prize crew.  The first occasion that presented to speak to my mate offered while we were busy together in the steerage, stowing away our effects, and in making such dispositions as we could to be comfortable.

“What think you, Moses, of this Mr. Sennit and his people?” I asked, in a low voice, leaning forward on a water-cask, in order to get my head nearer to that of the mate.  “They do not look like first-rate man-of-war’s-men; by activity and surprise, could we not handle them?”

Marble laid a finger on his nose, winked, looked as sagacious as he knew how, and then went to the steerage door, which communicated with the companion-way, to listen if all were safe in that quarter.  Assured that there was no one near, he communicated his thoughts as follows: 

“The same idee has been at work here,” he said, tapping his forehead with a fore-finger, “and good may come of it This Mr. Sennit is a cunning chap, and will want good looking after, but his mate drinks like a coal-heaver; I can see that in his whole face; a top-lantern is not lighter. He must be handled by brandy.  Then, a more awkward set of long-shore fellows were never sent to manage a square-rigged craft, than these which have been sent from the Speedy.  They must have given us the very sweepings of the hold.”

“You know how it is with these dashing young man-of-war captains; they keep all their best materials for a fight.  French frigates are tolerably plenty, they tell me, and this Lord Harry Dermond, much as he loves sugar and coffee, would like to fall in with a la Vigilante, or a la Diane, of equal force, far better.  This is the secret of his giving Sennit such a set of raw ones.  Besides, he supposes the Dawn will be at Plymouth in eight-and-forty hours, as will certainly be the case should this wind stand.”

“The fellows are just so many London loafers. (I have always thought Marble had the merit of bringing this word into fashion.) There are but three seamen among them, and they are more fit for a hospital than for a lowyer-yard or a jib-boom.”