“That will never do,” rejoined the Sergeant.  “The responsibility of this affair rests with me, and I request and enjoin that nothing be said to any one without my knowledge.  We will all keep watchful eyes about us, and take proper note of circumstances.”

“Ay, ay! circumstances are the things after all,” returned Cap.  “One circumstance is worth fifty facts.  That I know to be the law of the realm.  Many a man has been hanged on circumstances.”

The conversation now ceased, and, after a short delay, the whole party returned to the deck, each individual disposed to view the conduct of the suspected Jasper in the manner most suited to his own habits and character.

CHAPTER XIV.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam’s Curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned. 
SHAKESPEARE.

All this time matters were elsewhere passing in their usual train.  Jasper, like the weather and his vessel, seemed to be waiting for the land-breeze; while the soldiers, accustomed to early rising, had, to a man, sought their pallets in the main hold.  None remained on deck but the people of the cutter, Mr. Muir, and the two females.  The Quartermaster was endeavoring to render himself agreeable to Mabel, while our heroine herself, little affected by his assiduities, which she ascribed partly to the habitual gallantry of a soldier, and partly, perhaps, to her own pretty face, was enjoying the peculiarities of a scene and situation which, to her, were full of the charms of novelty.

The sails had been hoisted, but as yet not a breath of air was in motion; and so still and placid was the lake, that not the smallest motion was perceptible in the cutter.  She had drifted in the river-current to a distance a little exceeding a quarter of a mile from the land, and there she lay, beautiful in her symmetry and form, but like a fixture.  Young Jasper was on the quarter-deck, near enough to hear occasionally the conversation which passed; but too diffident of his own claim, and too intent on his duties, to attempt to mingle in it.  The fine blue eyes of Mabel followed his motions in curious expectation, and more than once the Quartermaster had to repeat his compliments before she heard them, so intent was she on the little occurrences of the vessel, and, we might add, so indifferent to the eloquence of her companion.  At length, even Mr. Muir became silent, and there was a deep stillness on the water.  Presently an oar-blade fell in a boat beneath the fort, and the sound reached the cutter as distinctly as if it had been produced on her deck.  Then came a murmur, like a sigh of the night, a fluttering of the canvas, the creaking of the boom, and the flap of the jib.  These well-known sounds were followed by a slight heel in the cutter, and by the bellying of all the sails.