'Nothing that's reached my ears. Nothing that could annoy ye, anyway,' said the old pilot. 'I did hear that they were likely to be engaged because of their being locked up all night under the earth alone. Some fathers would feel a little sensitive on this matter. You don't seem to have taken it to heart, commander;' and the pilot flourished his glass at his mouth, and put it down with a gesture eloquent of 'no more.'

'Am I to be told,' cried the commander, whisking round upon the pilot, and taking aim at him with the stem of his pipe, 'that every one who saves the life of another must marry 'em? Why, the penalty might be regarded as so violent there'd be no life-saving at all. A young man on the sea-shore would say, "I see a girl drowning; never do to save her; most indelicate for her to be seen lying in my arms in her bathing-gown!" Nothing but marriage could rescue the lady from the very compromising situation the gentleman, by saving her life, had placed her in.'

Leaddropper sniggered.

Whilst these two old sailors were conversing in the little square cottage on the top of the tall cliffs, Captain Jackman and Ada Conway were slowly making their way towards the town. The flash of the sea far down, the guns of the sea low down, the white lightning of the gulls' flight went with them; and with them rode a pleasant panorama of shipping; a line-of-battle ship was making her way up Channel; she hung sullen, and tossed with massive plunge, heaving about her the foam of a dozen breaking seas; a smart little schooner, with masts like fishing-rods, sitting low and almost level, save where her bow struck for domination in an abrupt leap of sheer, was cutting through her own yeast; others were glorious with the light and the life, and all that the ocean has of beauty to confer upon the fabrics which sail upon it and trust it; but none of these things did the lovers take heed of.

Probably Jackman had had enough of the sea and its pictures, and nothing short of a whirlpool or a lightning-clothed disaster, full of foam and rolling peals, was likely to court Miss Conway's eye to that wide blue flashing breast.

'Ada,' said Jackman, 'your father will not give his consent. That's as certain to me as that it is I that am talking to you.'

'Why will not he give me my way?' she cried. 'It's hard to have to take it—to leave an old father. Yet he binds me to him by nothing; we see little or nothing of each other. I am a convenience as mistress of his house. But I am not mistress, and every day makes me feel the want of independence.'

'Will you trust yourself with me in the little parlour of the "Faithful Heart"?' said the captain, after a short pause. 'I have a project I want to talk to you about.'

'After the Devil's Walk!' she cried, with spirit. 'After that, Walter, I think I should be able to trust you anywhere.'