“Well, never mind!” said Daniel.  “We have to do it.”

“I wish they were in paradise!” swore the captain.

Nevertheless, he ordered all that was necessary to slacken speed, and then to tack so as to come close upon the little boat.

It was a difficult and tedious manoeuvre; but at last, after half an hour’s work, they could throw a rope into the boat.

There were two men in it, who hastened to come on the deck of the clipper.  One was a sailor of about twenty, the other a man of perhaps fifty, who looked like a country gentleman, appeared ill at ease, and cast about him restless glances in all directions.  But, whilst they were hoisting themselves up by the man-rope; the captain of “The Saint Louis” had had time to examine their boat, and to ascertain that it was in good condition, and every thing in it in perfect order.

Crimson with wrath, he now seized the young sailor by his collar; and, shaking him so roughly as nearly to disjoint his neck, he said with a formidable oath,—­

“Are you making fun of me?  What wretched joke have you been playing?”

Like their captain, the men on board, also, had discovered the perfect uselessness of the signals of distress which had excited their sympathy; and their indignation was great at what they considered a stupid mystification.  They surrounded the sailor with a threatening air, while he struggled in the captain’s hand, and cried in his Marseilles jargon,—­

“Let go!  You are smothering me!  It is not my fault.  It was the gentleman there, who hired my boat for a sail.  I, I would not make the signal; but”—­

Nevertheless, the poor fellow would probably have experienced some very rough treatment, if the “gentleman” had not come running up, and covered him with his own body, exclaiming,—­

“Let that poor boy go!  I am the only one to blame!”

The captain, in a great rage, pushed him back, and, looking at him savagely, said,—­

“Ah! so it is you who have dared”—­

“Yes, I did it.  But I had my reasons.  This is surely ‘The Saint Louis,’ eh, coming from Saigon?”

“Yes.  What next?”

“You have on board Lieut.  Champcey of the navy?”

Daniel, who had been a silent witness of the scene, now stepped forward, very much puzzled.

“I am Lieut.  Champcey, sir,” he said.  “What do you desire?”

But, instead of replying, the “gentleman” raised his hands to heaven in a perfect ecstasy of joy, and said in an undertone,—­

“We triumph at last!”

Then, turning to Daniel and the captain, he said,—­

“But come, gentlemen, come!  I must explain my conduct; and we must be alone for what I have to tell you.”

Pale, and with every sign of seasickness in his face, when he had first appeared on deck, the man now seemed to have recovered, and, in spite of the rolling of the vessel, followed the captain and Daniel with a firm step to the quarter-deck.  As soon as they were alone, he said,—­