Day broke and discovered us with the Moorish coast low on our starboard horizon. To Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock this meant nothing, and my father might have left them to their ignorance had he not in the course of the forenoon caught them engaged upon a silly piece of mischief, which was, to scribble on small sheets of paper various affecting narratives—as that the Gauntlet was sinking, or desperately attacked by pirates, in such and such a latitude and longitude—insert them in empty bottles, and commit them to the chances of the deep. The object (as Mr. Fett explained it) being to throw Billy Priske's sweetheart off the scent. For two days past he had been slyly working upon Billy's fears, and was relating to him how, with two words, a Moorish lady had followed Gilbert a Becket from Palestine to London, and found him there—when my father, attracted by the smell of pitch, strolled forward and caught Mr. Badcock in the act of sealing the bottles from a ladle which stood heating over a lamp. In the next five minutes the pair learnt that my father could lose his temper, and the lesson visibly scared them.
"Your pardon, sir," twittered Mr. Fett. "'Twas a foolish joke, I confess."
"I may lend some point to it," answered my father grimly, "by telling you what I had a mind to conceal, that you stand at this moment at no far remove from one of the worst dangers you have playfully invented. The wind has dropped again, as you perceive. Along the coast yonder live the worst pirates in the world, and with a glass we may all but discern the dreadful barracks in which so many hundreds of our fellow-Christians lie at this moment languishing. Please God we are only visible from the hill-country, and coast tribes may miss to descry us! For our goal lies north and east, and to fail of it would break my heart. But 'twere a high enterprise for England some day to smoke out these robbers, and I know none to which a Christian man could more worthily engage himself."
Mr. Badcock shivered. "In our parish church," said he, "we used to take up a collection for these poor prisoners every Septuagesima. Many a sermon have I listened to and wondered at their sufferings, yet idly, as no doubt Axminster folk would wonder at this plight of mine, could they hear of it at this moment."
"My father, his wrath being yet recent, did not spare to paint our peril of capture and the possible consequences in lively colours; but observing that Nat and I had drawn near to listen, he put on a cheerfuller tone.
"He will turn all this to the note of love, and within five minutes,"
I whispered to Nat, "or I'll forfeit five shillings."
My father could not have heard me; yet pat on the moment he rose to the bet as a fish to a fly.
"Yet love," said he, "love, the star of our quest, has shone before now into these dungeons, these dark ways of blood, these black and cruel hearts, and divinely illuminated them; as a score of histories bear witness, and among them one you shall hear."
THE STORY OF THE ROVER AND THE LORD PROVOST'S DAUGHTER.
"In Edinburgh, in the Canongate, there stands a tenement known as Morocco Land, over the second floor of which leans forward, like a figure-head, the wooden statue of a Moor, black and naked, with a turban and a string of beads; and concerning this statue the following tale is told.