Ten o’clock! The red-coated soldiery of Fort Regent and Elizabeth Castle, the guardians of Mont Orgueil, were all wrapped in slumber, save the poor, shivering sentinels. Ten o’clock! The drenched tide waiters at St. Heliers pier anathematized the still distant Stella, whose lights now blinked feebly, laboring far out at sea. “An hour yet to wait!” growled the bedraggled customs officers. Ten o’clock! The good burghers of St. Heliers had given up their whist, and taken their last drop of “hot and hot.” In St. Aubin’s Bay, from Corbin’s Light, from mansion in town, and cot among the Druidical rocks, anxious eyes now gazed out on the wild sea, where Andrew Fraser tried to calm the terrified Nadine Johnstone. Mattie Jones was lying senseless, a helpless mass of cowering humanity, while the anxious captain and pilot vigorously swore, as became hardy British seamen. The “Chief” had piped up “that the engines would be out of her,” if they shipped another sea like the last. Prayer in the cabin, curses on the deck, fear in the hold, and misery everywhere; the stout Stella struggled shoreward, toward her dangerous landing at the pier, whose sheer sixty feet of masonry wall was now lashed by the wild waves. Black waters rose and fell in great surges. The shivering coastguards in the line of garrisoned martello towers, vowed that no such night had ever been seen since the “Great Storm.” Prince Djiddin had also given up all hope of the return of the faithful Moonshee whose plea of “business,” had led him away to the society of his brave and beautiful bride. There was but one more day of “home life” before resuming the hoodwinking of the mentally excited historian of Thibet. “It’s a fearful night on the Channel,” thought Major Hardwicke as he waited in vain for Simpson’s return to act as valet de chambre. “God help all at sea! It’s a fearful night,” Prince Djiddin murmured as he closed his eyes, little reckoning that the beautiful girl whom he loved more than life was tempest-tossed off the Corbieres, while poor Mattie Jones literally “sickened on the heaving wave.” The great house was lone and still, and for the first time Prince Djiddin reflected upon the exposed situation of the old miser’s home. “Poor old chap,” he muttered, as he closed his eyes. “Somebody might come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to stop it. I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson--that is, if he is ever sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will have his drink!” There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to take some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.