“My child,” said the captain, resuming his pipe with an expression of mild reproof on his countenance, “don’t go for to pry too deep into things o’ the past.  I may have been a fire-eater once—­I may have been a gay young feller as could——­; but no matter.  Avast musin’!  As Lord Bacon says—­

’The light of other days is faded,
An’ all their glory ’a past;
My boots no longer look as they did,
But, like my coat, are goin’ fast.’

But I say, leftenant, how long do you mean to keep pullin’ about here, without an enemy, or, as far as I can see, an object in view?  Don’t you think we might land, and let Minnie see some of the caves?”

“With all my heart, captain, and here is a convenient bay to run the boat ashore.”

As he spoke the boat shot past one of those bold promontories of red sandstone which project along that coast in wild picturesque forms, terminating in some instances in detached headlands, elsewhere in natural arches.  The cliffs were so close to the boat that they could have been touched by the oars, while the rocks, rising to a considerable height, almost overhung them.  Just beyond this a beautiful bay opened up to view, with a narrow strip of yellow shingle round the base of the cliffs, which here lost for a short distance their rugged character, though not their height, and were covered with herbage.  A zigzag path led to the top, and the whole neighbourhood was full of ocean-worn coves and gullies, some of them dry, and many filled with water, while others were filled at high tide, and left empty when the tides fell.

“O how beautiful! and what a place for smugglers!” was Minnie’s enthusiastic exclamation on first catching sight of the bay.

“The smugglers and you would appear to be of one mind,” said Ruby, “for they are particularly fond of this place.”

“So fond of it,” said the lieutenant, “that I mean to wait for them here in anticipation of a moonlight visit this night, if my fair passenger will consent to wander in such wild places at such late hours, guarded from the night air by my boat-cloak, and assured of the protection of my stout boatmen in case of any danger, although there is little prospect of our meeting with any greater danger than a breeze or a shower of rain.”

Minnie said that she would like nothing better; that she did not mind the night air; and, as to danger from men, she felt that she should be well cared for in present circumstances.

As she uttered the last words she naturally glanced at Ruby, for Minnie was of a dependent and trusting nature; but as Ruby happened to be regarding her intently, though quite accidentally, at the moment, she dropped her eyes and blushed.

It is wonderful the power of a little glance at times.  The glance referred to made Ruby perfectly happy.  It conveyed to him the assurance that Minnie regarded the protection of the entire boat’s crew, including the lieutenant, as quite unnecessary, and that she deemed his single arm all that she required or wanted.