he expressed considerable anxiety and impatience.  A breeze sprang up and began to curl the surface of the water, and clouds obscured the moon.  Then the wind freshened to a storm, and lifted the waves on the channel, and roared in the cypress forests above Pera and Scutari.  Under the light sails already set, the ship tugged hard at her cable.  Yet the boat did not return.  The captain walked the deck nervously, and finally gave orders to weigh anchor, when just as our bark, freed to the wind and the current, sprang forward on her long voyage, the boat for which we were looking shot suddenly under the prow, and in an instant our mysterious comrade stepped in upon the deck from the bow-chains.  As he did so, the light of the mate’s lantern fell full upon him, and the scene it revealed will certainly never be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it.

There he stood, looming out from the tempestuous darkness more gigantic and terrible than ever, with the form of a beautiful girl, gorgeously clad and flashing with jewels, held easily and firmly by one encircling arm.  His disengaged right hand was stained as if with blood, and spots of the same sanguinary hue were on his brow and his garments.  The expression of his face was unmoved as usual.

For a moment he permitted the slippered feet of the trembling girl to rest upon the deck, though his arm still encompassed her shrinking form, and, while her great dark eyes, dilated with horror, like those of a captured bird, threw wild, eager glances to left and right, as if in search of any desperate refuge from the terrors that possessed her, he said in his usual quiet tones to the captain,—­

“This is the passenger for whom I engaged the cabin.  She will, by your leave, take possession of it at once.”  So saying, he led her gently forward and disappeared at the companion-way, conducted by the captain.

Every face on deck had grown pale, and every heart throbbed with the conviction that we had just beheld the consummation of a most desperate and bloody deed.  It was evident the girl had been snatched suddenly from the harem of some palace, probably from the royal seraglio itself, off which we had been lying.  And the horror depicted on her face, as well as the stains of blood on her abductor, told with what ruthless violence.  Here then, I thought, in all human probability, was the royal maiden I had summoned; here was the wildest vagary of my imagination realized.  But how different from the bright fancy was the woful reality!

Soon the captain returned on deck, pale and excited like the rest of us, and ordered a rash amount of sail to be set.  The mate, a bluff, powerful man, swore an oath that we should first understand the meaning of what had just transpired.

“I know no more about it than you do,” avowed the captain, “except that it’s a piece of business very likely to bring all our heads to the block unless we show a clean pair of heels for it.  So now avast jawing, and obey orders!”