The shock was felt all through the vessel, and Pine, who had been watching the ironing of the last of the mutineers, at once divined its cause.

“Thank God!” he cried, “there’s a breeze at last!” and as the overpowered Gabbett, bruised, bleeding, and bound, was dragged down the hatchway, the triumphant doctor hurried upon deck to find the Malabar plunging through the whitening water under the influence of a fifteen-knot breeze.

“Stand by to reef topsails! Away aloft, men, and furl the royals!” cries Best from the quarter-deck; and in the midst of the cheery confusion Maurice Frere briefly recapitulated what had taken place, taking care, however, to pass over his own dereliction of duty as rapidly as possible.

Pine knit his brows. “Do you think that she was in the plot?” he asked.

“Not she!” says Frere — eager to avert inquiry. “How should she be? Plot! She’s sickening of fever, or I’m much mistaken.”

Sure enough, on opening the door of the cabin, they found Sarah Purfoy lying where she had fallen a quarter of an hour before. The clashing of cutlasses and the firing of muskets had not roused her.

“We must make a sick-bay somewhere,” says Pine, looking at the senseless figure with no kindly glance; “though I don’t think she’s likely to be very bad. Confound her! I believe that she’s the cause of all this. I’ll find out, too, before many hours are over; for I’ve told those fellows that unless they confess all about it before to-morrow morning, I’ll get them six dozen a-piece the day after we anchor in Hobart Town. I’ve a great mind to do it before we get there. Take her head, Frere, and we’ll get her out of this before Vickers comes up. What a fool you are, to be sure! I knew what it would be with women aboard ship. I wonder Mrs. V. hasn’t been out before now. There — steady past the door. Why, man, one would think you never had your arm round a girl’s waist before! Pooh! don’t look so scared — I won’t tell. Make haste, now, before that little parson comes. Parsons are regular old women to chatter”; and thus muttering Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers’s maid into her cabin.

“By George, but she’s a fine girl!” he said, viewing the inanimate body with the professional eye of a surgeon. “I don’t wonder at you making a fool of yourself. Chances are, you’ve caught the fever, though this breeze will help to blow it out of us, please God. That old jackass, Blunt, too!— he ought to be ashamed of himself, at his age!”

“What do you mean?” asked Frere hastily, as he heard a step approach. “What has Blunt to say about her?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Pine. “He was smitten too, that’s all. Like a good many more, in fact.”

“A good many more!” repeated the other, with a pretence of carelessness.

“Yes!” laughed Pine. “Why, man, she was making eyes at every man in the ship! I caught her kissing a soldier once.”

Maurice Frere’s cheeks grew hot. The experienced profligate had been taken in, deceived, perhaps laughed at. All the time he had flattered himself that he was fascinating the black-eyed maid, the black-eyed maid had been twisting him round her finger, and perhaps imitating his love-making for the gratification of her soldier-lover. It was not a pleasant thought; and yet, strange to say, the idea of Sarah’s treachery did not make him dislike her. There is a sort of love — if love it can be called — which thrives under ill-treatment. Nevertheless, he cursed with some appearance of disgust.

Vickers met them at the door. “Pine, Blunt has the fever. Mr. Best found him in his cabin groaning. Come and look at him.”

The commander of the Malabar was............