g enough to admit the body-corporate of the skipper. It was not a particularly clean place, for a portion of it had been economized for the stowage of the charcoal, which the skipper preferred to wood. But he did not rebel at the blackness of the retreat he had chosen, for he wore his boating dress, which was hardly stylish enough for a dude or a dandy.

But Skipper Passford did not crawl into this black hole for the fun of the thing. He had been spending his time in waiting for a movement to be made in regard to the Bellevite. He staid in the house all the forenoon, and, after lunch, he sailed down the river in the Florence, though with no object in doing so beyond passing the time. Not far from the beach where he had afterwards left the yacht, he discovered a boat rowed by two men with a third in the stern sheets.

The breeze was quite gentle, though the Florence would sail at a very tolerable speed when there was the least apology for a wind. She was doing so on the present occasion, and Christy had stretched himself out on the cushioned seat, with the spokes of the wheel where he could steer without 74 any exertion, or next to none. The idleness of his days since his return from the eventful cruise of the Bellevite seemed to have infected him with an unnatural indolence.

He felt as though he was rather more than half asleep when he saw the boat with the two oarsmen. It was going up the river, while he was going down. He had to luff a little to keep clear of the oars, but he did not move from his half-recumbent posture. When the boat was alongside, he glanced idly and carelessly at the person in the stern sheets. Instantly he was wide awake, though he did not change his position. The person looked like a gentleman, and Christy was sure that he had seen him before. A couple of minutes of earnest cudgelling of his brain assured him that he had seen the stranger in Nassau; that he wa