“Africa,” quietly responded the captain, without a token of satisfaction.

“Africa? that is indeed an inhospitable shore; can we land there?”

“Yes, I shall make sure that you land safely, and can despatch you to Sierra Leone, from whence you can take ship for England, but—­”

“Sail O!” shouted the lookout.

“Whereaway?” asked the captain promptly, seizing a deck trumpet and abruptly turning from her to whom he had been speaking, while his whole manner changed at once.

“A couple of points on the larboard beam, sir,” answered the seaman.

“All hands, Mr. Faulkner, and ’bout ship; that square rig and the heavy lift of those topsails tell what there must be below to sustain them.  Lively, sir, the ‘Sea Witch’ must show her qualities.”

Miss Huntington had watched with some amazement these orders, and the result of the same, and as she saw the beautiful craft in which she was put at once on the opposite tack and steer boldly away from the shore which had just been made, she could not help for a moment remembering the words of the mate in the boat, that pirates sometimes were found in these latitudes!

After a moment’s thought she felt that she did Captain Ratlin injustice, for whatever might cause him to flee from the sight of what she presumed by his remarks to be a man-of-war, yet she felt that he could not be a pirate.  True, the vessel even to her inexperienced eye was very strongly manned, and there was a severity of discipline observed on board that was very different from what she had seen while they were in the Indiaman, but that man could not be a pirate, she felt that he could not—­she would not do him the injustice to think it possible.

Let the stranger be whom he might, the “Sea Witch” seemed to have no intention of making his acquaintance, and as easily dropped the topsails of the vessel again as she had made them, while from the manner in which the stranger steered, it was doubtful whether his lookout had made out the “Sea Witch” at all—­and so Captain Ratlin remarked to his first officer, while he ordered the ship to be kept on her present course for an hour, then to haul up on the wind and run in shore again.

“Is it usual, Captain Ratlin,” asked the young and beautiful girl, “for vessels on the coast to so dread meeting each other as to deliberately alter their course when this seems likely to be the case?”

“Trade is peculiar on this coast, and men-of-warsmen take extraordinary liberties on board such vessels as they happen to overhaul,” was the reply.  “I always avoid their company when I can do so conveniently.”

As Captain Ratlin said this, his eyes met those of his companion for a moment, which were bent anxiously upon his face, as though she would read his inmost thoughts.  He noted the expression, and replied at once: 

“Whatever suspicion or fear may have entered Miss Huntington’s mind, I beg of her to dispel, as it regards her own and her mother’s safety and comfort.  Both shall be my sole care until you are safely landed upon shore, where I shall at the earliest moment place you in a situation to reach your homes in England.”