"You'll pe all the

thocht. Yes, pe-tam.

petter liked for no peing what we Hae a drink?"

Falcon declined the horn cup which was tendered to him half full of brandy and water; but he was glad to think that he was likely to have a smooth course with his comrades. The expectation was soon dispelled.

The fog had been deepening all the afternoon, and Carrach had been keeping pace with the fog in drinking-that is, the blacker the fog grew the more he drank.

Toward evening, whilst a man named Donald was at the helm, the brig was suddenly overshadowed by some black mass ahead, much denser than the fog. Falcon sprang aft, and before Donald could utter a word, had ported the helm; and as the brig veered from her course she grated along the side of a huge vessel which crawled slowly by.

There was a moment of breathless consternation; then wild shouts from those on board the unknown vessel and the

hands of the brig. A babble that rose above the lashing of waves, and the creaking of timbers; and with it a confused rush of feet.

The danger was over when Carrach got on deck. He swore at everybody, and then he took Falcon aside, and asked him to explain what had happened. The absurdity of first making a row, and then asking for an explanation, did not strike Falcon at the moment, and he briefly told him that being forward he had observed the black shadow; suspected what it was, and, fearing that Donald might not observe it until too late on account of the darkness, he had hastened to the helm.

None of his comrades had heard what he was saying, but they were standing in a group round Donald, casting sullen glances toward Falcon, as if suspecting that he was blaming them.

Carrach advanced to Donald with his eyes rolling and a string of oaths on his tongue, although his face was stolid as usual.

"What ta deevil did you'll mean by quitting your helm?” he growled.

"I didna quit the helm," answered Donald, surlily.

"It's a tam lee,-oich! but you'll tell me that to my face whan here's Falcon, wha saved us frae going to smash all together, told me that you was not there."

"It's a lee he's telling," shouted Donald and his two mates.

"I never said so," cried Falcon, breaking in indignantly; "and you know it, Carrach. I told you that Donald was at his post, but the fog prevented him from seeing the danger so soon as I did."

Carrach turned his eyes upon him, not in the slightest degree disturbed by the flat contradiction of his falsehood.

"Did you'll no told me that Donald was awa frae the helm whan you took hold of her?"

"No," retorted Falcon; as much amazed by the man's placidity as by the apparently objectless lie.

"Well, all I say is that what you'll told me standing ayont there, was not like what you'll told me noo. Come doon stair, Donald; an' hae a spoke wi' me."

"Bide a minute," said Falcon, confronting him, "bide a minute, Ivan Carrach, and hearken to me. I'm no a fool, and I'm no blind. I hae seen that the lads here had some ill-will against me. I ken noo wha has made that ill-will, though I cannot tell what for."

"What is't you'll mean?" demanded Carrach, his dirty fat hands swinging like two weights by his sides.

"This is what I mean, mates," addressing the men, although still confronting the master, "our skipper wants to make ill-blood atween you and me, whatever reason he has for't; but before ye condemn me, mind this-I never said a bad word of ony o' ye, and I never thought of doing so."

"Did you'll ken what you was doing enow ?" queried Ivan, rolling his eyes in the fashion of a cow chewing a sweet cud.

"Telling the truth."

"Maybe so, but you'll be also making ta mutiny on ta high seas, and the law says a man wha'll be make the mutinies

shall be hanged-pe-tam-so shust mind what you're about, my praw lad."

He pushed by him and rolled down to his cabin, followed by Donald.

When the latter returned to the deck, he regarded Falcon with a sullen growl, as if he had been satisfied of his attempt to defame him. He apparently succeeded in convincing his comrades also, for in a short while the brown faces of the men were darkened with suppressed passion. More than one of them muttered an ejaculation of anger when he rubbed shoulders with Falcon.

Hutcheson, however, was still friendly; and after he had left the helm-which he had taken when Donald had gone down with the skipper-he whispered to Falcon

"I heard what ye said to the skipper, and I ken that what ye tauld the lads was true. But what the deil he's drivin' at I canna make oot."

"Then why did you not speak when you heard him telling the lie ?

Hutcheson shrugged his shoulders.

"There was nae use making bad waur. The lads, being prejudiced against ye, would hae believed him in spite of us baith. Sae that it would hae dune ye nae guid, and maybe it would hae dune me harm. But for a' that I'll speak a word for ye when it's needed."

That seemed to Falcon a kind of backhanded way of doing justice, but he said no more. The puzzle he had found on board the Colin was becoming so hopelessly involved that he saw little prospect of solving it. The falsehood of Carrach seemed as purposeless as the prejudice of the men was groundless; yet both threatened to give him much trouble.

He did not turn into his hammock that night at his usual hour, but lay down on a heap of canvas near the forecastle hatch. He was out of humour and depressed; he wished to be alone; he did not care to be amongst his comrades in his present mood; and so seeing the canvas there he stretched himself upon it instead of going down the hatchway to his

hammock. It was one of those trivial acts which in nine hundred and ninety-nine instances is never remembered, because it bears no issue, but in which the thousandth instance is fraught with gravest consequences.

A HEAVY wind was sweeping the dense fog before it, so that about midnight stars became visible. Falcon lay watching them, thinking of Jeanie, and finding some comfort in the thought that those same stars were looking down on her. That was a link between them in spite of all the waste of land and sea which separated them.

Somehow the fortune he was seeking-and it was not a big one, only enough to stock a small farm-had never seemed so far from him as it did to-night. The difficulties he had to surmount were sterner, the chances of success fewer, than they had ever appeared before. But he was not losing courage he had not the remotest thought of yielding; he was only a little weary, and rested by the wayside to calculate what a short space he had journeyed on the long road he had yet to traverse.

The brig was cutting through the water with a swishing sound, the wind was whistling shrilly through the rigging, when suddenly her very timbers seemed to quiver with the sharp cry which rose upon the night.

"FIRE!"

Falcon bounded to his feet, and ran toward the mate's berth, whence the cry proceeded.

He met Hutcheson frenziedly rushing with a bucket for

water. Falcon seized another bucket, and having filled it, followed Hutcheson to his berth. An old sea chest in which various stores were kept was in a blaze. They emptied the water upon it, and, with the speed of men who knew that their lives depended upon their exertions, procured more. The flame had not obtained any hold on the surrounding wood-work, so that they had succeeded in extinguishing it with half a dozen bucketsful of water, by which time they were joined by Carrach, Donald, and two others.

The skipper was dressed exactly as he had been during the day. He had either not gone to bed at all, or he had lain down with his clothes on. He held a large lantern in one of his hands, and with its light he surveyed the men around him.

"What way did all this come about? wha's been trying to burn us all ?"

he growled,

"and

"I dinna ken how it happened," replied Hutcheson excitedly. "I was turning in after my watch, and when I came here I found the kist bleezing. If I'd been three minutes later there would have been nae chance o' getting it out, for yon jar o' oil would hae been afire, and then we micht hae said guid nicht to the Colin.”

"Did you'll leave nothing that could hae started the fire ?" Naething. The place was a' richt when I was here for some oil about half an hour syne."

"Then here's what I hae gotten to say," broke in Donald, clenching his fist furiously, and looking hard at Falcon; "there's some damned scoon'rel amang us that wants to work mischief tae us a', and if I had my will I'd hae Jeames Falcon boun' hand and foot, an' see if there was ony mair cantrips played us after that."

"And what for would we do that ?" said Carrach.

"Because he's the only ane that was out o' his hammock when he ought to hae been in it. He hasna been i' the forecastle the nicht."

Even Hutcheson looked suspiciously at Falcon now. The. latter admitted that he had not gone below, and tried to