"But why did you bite the man?" asked Captain Phillips, who had listened with some impatience, returning to the matter in hand.
"Because he is a pirate, if ever one broke biscuit!'
"Take care, Noah; he is one of our cabin passengers."
"I was a watching him, your honour, and I had queer suspicions that he meant foul play to one of us at least, and so I pretended to snooze, keeping watch with one eye open, though he did pass the light twice athwart my face. I saw him, your honour, though he doused the glim, and I could make out that he was going to strangle—to garotte, in true Californy style—my shipmate here, young Master Morley Ashton, who was asleep——"
"Mr. Morley Ashton!" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in an excited voice, as he hurried round to the other side of the hammock; "I should like to see the gentleman who is named so."
"Surely I should know that voice!" cried Morley, springing up in his hammock, and almost falling back within it, overwhelmed by astonishment on finding himself face to face with Mr. Basset—with the father of Ethel!
"What is this?—who is this? You, Morley Ashton, on board the Hermione?" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in a gust of genuine bewilderment, equalled only by that of Morley, who trembled with anticipation and astonishment, and who felt at his heart a sudden and clamorous joy. "You one of the four men taken from that melancholy wreck! How came it to be? Explain—tell me. Good heavens! how? Oh, my poor boy, Morley, we have long numbered you with the dead, and have mourned for you as such—none more, believe me, than my dearest girl."
"Where am I, sir?—what ship is this?" stammered Morley, as a new light began to break in upon him, while grasping Mr. Basset's hand, with one arm thrown caressingly round his neck. "Am I on board the Hermione? Has she picked us up—saved us from death?"
"Yes, sir; this is the Hermione, of London," said Captain Phillips, "too long delayed by contrary winds, and the loss of a mast near the Canaries."
"Oh, Morley Ashton," began Mr. Basset, "if you did but know——"