But in the same ratio to the intensity of her secret satisfaction at the hoped-for execution of Captain Will Ratlin, whom she had once loved, but now so bitterly hated, was her disappointment, vexation, and uncontrollable anger, at the idea of his escape, of which she was one of the first to learn.

Captain Robert Bramble, though he did not attempt to find his brother, would hardly have believed that he would remain openly in town, and at the mission-house; but Maud reasoned more truly.  It was the first thought that entered her head that he had probably gone thither to be near and with Helen Huntington, and thither she stealthily crept, and watched until she saw him, and thus satisfied herself.  Knowing nothing of the discovery that had been made, she hastened to give information to Captain Bramble, supposing that he would take steps for his immediate arrest; but in this she was disappointed.

She could not understand the apathy which seemed to have come over the English officer who so lately had thirsted for the young commander’s blood, and she went away from him amazed and dejected.  In vain, thus far, had her attempts resulted as to sacrificing him whom she so bitterly despised.  She had trusted to others thus far—­this she said to herself, as she mused at the fruitless attempts she had been engaged in—­now she would trust to herself.  But how to do it she hardly knew.  When he was under her father’s roof, and she unsuspected of hostility to him, it would have been an easy matter, with her knowledge of poisons, to have sacrificed his life; but now it was not so very easy for her to find an opportunity for any sort of approach to him.  But this seemed her last and only resource of vengeance, and she cared to live only to consummate it.

Actually afraid to bring his brother again to trial, for fear of a personal exposure, Captain Robert Bramble was now in a quandary; he was looked to by the court for a conclusion of the suit he had brought, and was now so situated that he found it necessary to screen that brother whom he so bitterly disliked, from the cognizance of the authorities.  Indeed, he became nervous lest the exposure should become public in spite of his efforts at concealing the singular facts.  All this, of course, tended to the safety of his brother Charles, who had rightly anticipated this state of affairs in relation to the part that Robert must needs enact; he therefore felt perfectly safe in awaiting an opportunity for shipment to England in the first vessel bound thither, and it was at once agreed between Mrs. Huntington, Helen and himself, that they would go together.  The period of the return of Captain Bramble’s ship to England was fast approaching, and passage had been offered to Helen and her mother therein; but Helen had promptly declined it, and induced her mother to do so also, though it required some persuasion to bring this result about.

Charles Bramble, of course, kept within doors at Sierra Leone, and did not, by exposing his person, provoke arrest.  He was reading aloud to Helen a few days subsequent to his escape from his brother’s ship, when the door of the room was stealthily opened, and a person stepped in.